AI is now part of my toolkit for science communication, just like cameras, editing software, and drawing tablets.
It’s not a replacement for scholarship, and it’s not a magic oracle. It’s a tool I use carefully to share deep history with more people, more clearly.
This page explains:
Why I use AI at all What I do and don’t use it for How I handle accuracy, ethics, and artists’ labor Where I draw the line and how I plan to evolve these practices
I’m laying this out because I care about both truth and trust. If I’m asking you to take my work seriously, you deserve to know how it’s made.
1. Why I Use AI in Science Communication
My work sits at the intersection of:
Human origins and deep history Public-facing education and outreach Limited time, limited funding, and a lot of ideas
AI helps me:
Translate complex research into accessible language Create conceptual visuals quickly (when I don’t have the budget or time to hire an artist) Experiment with narrative and visual formats that might reach people who’d never pick up an academic article
I use AI to amplify my ability to communicate—not to replace critical thinking, scholarship, or human creativity.
2. What AI Images Are (and Are Not) in My Work
What they are
When I use AI-generated images in posts, talks, or social media, they are:
Conceptual / illustrative: visual metaphors, mood pieces, or stylized depictions meant to support a point, not stand in as literal data. Tools for engagement: a way to grab attention so I can then talk about fossils, methods, uncertainty, and real evidence. Clearly my responsibility: I treat every image I publish as something I am accountable for, regardless of the tool that helped generate it.
What they are not
AI images in my work are not:
Fossil evidence Direct reconstructions of specific individuals or species (unless clearly stated as such and based on referenced work) Substitutes for actual site photos, artifact images, or primary data
Whenever I show a real fossil, site, or artifact, I aim to:
Use actual photos or well-documented reconstructions Label them as such Keep AI out of that part entirely or clearly separate it
3. How I Handle Accuracy and Misrepresentation
AI is very good at making things that look plausible and very bad at knowing when it’s wrong.
To avoid misleading people:
For images
I don’t present AI images as literal, data-level reconstructions unless they are explicitly grounded in referenced research. When an image is AI-generated, I: Treat it as concept art, not evidence. Avoid “overconfident realism” that might confuse viewers about what we actually know. Add clarifying text in captions/posts when needed (e.g., “conceptual illustration” or “AI-generated conceptual scene”).
For text
I use AI tools to: Brainstorm structure Simplify wording Draft accessible summaries I do not use AI to: Fabricate sources Invent data Replace reading the primary literature
At the end of the day, I am responsible for the claims, citations, and interpretations. AI is a drafting assistant. The judgment is mine.
4. Artists, Labor, and Why I Still Support Human Creativity
I take seriously the concern that AI systems are trained on massive datasets that include the work of human artists who were not asked for consent.
My current commitments:
When I can hire artists, designers, or animators, I do, and I’m happy to credit and pay them. AI visuals are a stopgap, not my ideal state. They fill the gap when: Funding is limited Turnaround is tight The alternative is “no visuals at all”
I’m also open to:
Collaborating with artists who want to build AI-informed but human-led projects Updating these practices as the legal and ethical landscape evolves (e.g., models trained with explicit consent, more transparent datasets, better protections for creators)
If you are an artist with specific concerns—or interested in collaborative work—reach out. I’d rather have a real conversation than argue via comment sections.
5. Transparency and Labelling
Transparency is the minimum ethical standard for using AI.
My commitments here:
If an image is AI-generated, I will: Treat it as conceptual Label it clearly where the context could confuse people If text heavily involves AI assistance, I will: Maintain final editorial control Ensure all claims are checked against real sources Make clear, when relevant, that AI was used in the drafting process
My goal is that a reader or viewer should never have to guess whether something is evidence or illustration.
6. Respect, Harm Reduction, and Sensitive Topics
Working in human origins and deep history means I touch on:
Human remains Past populations who have living descendant communities Themes of race, identity, and humanity
My AI practices sit inside a broader ethical framework:
I do not use AI to: Generate sensationalized or disrespectful images of past or present people Create clickbait around trauma, colonization, or genocide When material involves human remains or descendant communities, I aim to: Stay grounded in respectful, accurate representation Avoid dehumanizing or “monsterizing” depictions Prioritize clarity about what is known, what is hypothesized, and what is imagined
AI is not an excuse to be careless with human stories.
7. Continuous Revision: This Is a Living Document
AI and its ethics are moving targets. The point of this page isn’t to claim I’ve solved it once and for all. It’s to:
Make my current principles visible Give you something concrete to critique or discuss Hold myself publicly accountable to better standards over time
I expect to revise these guidelines as:
New tools emerge Better ethical frameworks develop I learn from colleagues, artists, students, and community members
If you have specific, constructive concerns—for example:
“This image misrepresents X fossil because…” “This caption could mislead people about what we actually know…”
—then I’m very open to hearing them. Vague “AI bad” comments are not very actionable. Concrete critique is.
8. Summary: What You Can Expect from My AI Use
If you follow my work, here’s what you can expect:
AI is used: To brainstorm and draft text, which I then edit and fact-check To generate conceptual illustrations and memes that support educational content AI is not used: As a replacement for reading the literature As a source of data or evidence To make unlabelled “realistic” reconstructions that blur the line between concept art and evidence I aim to: Be transparent about AI use Avoid misleading audiences Respect human creators and communities Update my practices in response to well-founded critique
If we’re going to tell the story of us—humans, in all our weird, ancient, creative glory—then the tools we use should be handled with care, honesty, and a willingness to improve. That’s what I’m committing to here.
Rock art is one of the most enigmatic yet expressive forms of communication preserved from the Palaeolithic. Meanings remain debated, but the places and conditions in which images were made offer disciplined clues. This paper examines a spiral engraving in the Ocreza Valley in Portugal, set above a stretch of river where the rapids form a visible and audible swirl. I advance a working hypothesis: the Ocreza Spiral records a local soundscape, a river mark that draws attention to the turbulent flow below and may have carried a cautionary or mnemonic role. Rivers have distinctive acoustic signatures shaped by hydraulics and bedforms, and rapids produce stable roars that carry over distance (Pijanowski et al., 2011; Tonolla et al., 2011; Geay et al., 2019; Tatum et al., 2023). Comparative work shows that images and monuments often occupy places with unusual acoustic response, whether echoing gorges or roaring falls (Díaz-Andreu and García Benito, 2012; Mattioli et al., 2017; Goldhahn, 2002). Grounding the discussion in the Tagus and Ocreza corpus keeps the interpretation regionally anchored (Danelatos, 2022; Nash and Garcês, 2023). While the spiral is not the only engraving at the locality, its abstract form invites a sensory reading tied to water motion and sound. The paper introduces soundscape ecology, sets out parallels between rock art and watery acoustics, and proposes testable predictions for further study.
Background: Listening to landscapes
To ground the argument, a soundscape is the experienced acoustic environment of a locality, shaped by geophony, biophony, and anthrophony, and sometimes anchored by distinctive soundmarks (Schafer, 1994; Pijanowski et al., 2011). People often represent such place-specific sounds in marks or monuments in deep history and in living cultures. The Ocreza Spiral may be one of these records. Its form mirrors the eddy below the panel, and its placement overlooks a reach of river where rapids produce a persistent roar. Read this way, the spiral works as a river mark, a visual cue to a distinctive sound that signalled turbulence and focused attention on a memorable stretch of water (Tonolla et al., 2011; Tatum et al., 2023). Rapids and riffles create recognisable acoustic spectra that carry over distance, and their loudness and timbre vary with slope, bed roughness, air entrainment, and discharge (Geay et al., 2019; Tatum et al., 2023). A rapid can be heard before it is seen, which helps explain why such places invite marking. Studies of temperate freshwater soundscapes show a diverse acoustic milieu that would have framed such experiences (Rountree, Juanes and Bolgan, 2020). Archaeoacoustics shows that images and monuments often occupy locations with striking acoustic responses, including echoing gorges and roaring water, which suggests that what was heard helped decide where people made and used marks (Díaz-Andreu and García Benito, 2012; Mattioli et al., 2017; Goldhahn, 2002). A sensory reading is a complement, not a replacement, for other interpretations. Spirals and circles can also mark paths, altered states, or solar ideas. The claim here is modest. If spiral and circular signs tend to cluster near water features with distinctive acoustic qualities, then a river mark reading gains plausibility and becomes testable in the Tagus and Ocreza system and beyond.
Acoustic setting in rock art
By acoustic setting I mean the way a site’s sound behaviour shapes where images are placed and how they are experienced. Many rock art locales show pronounced resonance and echo. Studies in painted caves report that images concentrate in places with marked resonance, which implies that acoustic properties helped guide placement (Reznikoff and Dauvois, 1988). In open air gorges and along cliff lines, field measurements likewise show that panels coincide with strong reflections. Work in La Valltorta and the Central Mediterranean identified echo hotspots that match the distribution of imagery (Díaz-Andreu and García Benito, 2012; Mattioli et al., 2017).
Watery places are especially potent acoustically. Rapids, falls, and lake cliffs produce powerful geophony that draws attention and activity. Scandinavian and Finnish datasets show dense imagery at sites where water roars or echoes, which supports the idea that water sound helped structure where people made and used marks (Goldhahn, 2002; Rainio et al., 2025). These conditions aid audibility at distance, create rhythmic cues for performance, and produce call and response effects that make places memorable. Archaeoacoustic work applies repeatable measurements and modelling to such settings, from on site impulse responses to physical and digital reconstructions (Watson and Keating, 1999; Cox, Fazenda and Greaney, 2020). Not every cluster is acoustically driven, and present day acoustics may differ from past ones, so these links should be proposed as testable rather than assumed. Within this frame, the Ocreza spiral sits above a turbulent reach that produces a persistent roar, which makes an acoustic reading plausible and worth testing in the Tagus system.
Spirals, eddies, and water symbolism
Spiral motifs occur across Atlantic and Iberian traditions, yet meanings vary. I ask whether the Ocreza spiral indexes a local water phenomenon, specifically the eddy visible and audible from the panel. Regional syntheses set out the range of readings in Portugal and the Tagus basin and help anchor this discussion in local corpora (Bradley, 1997; Nash and Garcês, 2023; Danelatos, 2022).
Spirals, concentric circles, and cup and ring designs form a related family that supports several interpretations. Any water reading should remain a working hypothesis alongside solar, path, and trance explanations, and it should be weighed against site context and motif associations (Bradley, 1997; Nash and Garcês, 2023).
Why consider water here. Eddies generate rotating foam lines that trace a spiral planform. From the stance above the rapids the visible swirl matches the carved geometry, and the same reach produces a persistent roar that people could hear before they saw the water. That kind of recurrent sound functions as a soundmark and helps explain why such places invite marking (Schafer, 1994; Pijanowski et al., 2011; Tonolla et al., 2011; Tatum et al., 2023).
Comparative evidence shows that makers sometimes shaped grooves or basins so that water could enter or pass across carvings, and several authors link circular marks to water behaviour and watery places, though not in every case (Wikman, 2022; Bradley, 1997). This does not prove that spirals equal water everywhere, but it makes a cautious water reading reasonable when a motif sits beside turbulent flow that is both seen and heard.
There is also a performative angle. Carving a spiral asks for a continuous turning motion that echoes the gesture used when pointing out a swirl. The motif can be indexical of flow and meaningful in practice, linking body, water, motion, and memory during making and use.
The water reading should be tested with simple criteria. Support would include proximity to hydraulic turbulence, orientation toward the flow, and association with channels or basins that interact with rain or spray. Further support would be a local cluster of similar signs at other rapids in the Tagus system. Counter indicators would include consistent pairing with solar motifs far from water or panel orientations that ignore the river. These checks align with methods used to test acoustic siting in open air contexts (Díaz-Andreu and García Benito, 2012; Mattioli et al., 2017).
With these criteria in view, the Ocreza spiral’s position above a turbulent reach makes a cautious water reading plausible and worth testing against the wider Tagus corpus (Danelatos, 2022; Nash and Garcês, 2023).
Ocreza and Tagus case study
The Ocreza Valley is a tributary setting within the middle Tagus basin in central Portugal, where steep schist and granite walls confine a fast reach of river. Near the municipality of Mação, the engravings sit off the beaten path on private land above the channel. The reach below the panel is confined, and the water accelerates as it passes bed irregularities. You can hear the rapid before you see it, even from the height of the ledge where the engravings are.
The river in this sector is usually slow compared with true white water, but the increase in speed at the constriction is obvious. Foam rises to the surface where turbulence breaks through, and a small eddy forms below the obstacle. Modern dams on the Tagus have altered discharge and seasonality, so present sound levels are likely lower and less variable than they would have been in Palaeolithic times. Even so, the audible character of the reach remains clear enough to consider how sound may have structured attention here. This is a suitable place to test the working hypothesis. See Figure 4 for the wider reach.
The spiral sits on a lightly weathered panel above river level. In good light the carving is readable; in flat or overcast light it recedes and becomes difficult to see without knowing where to look. The panel has a view over the river and the rapid. The incision is shallow but continuous, and the motif is a simple single spiral rather than a nested set. The rock surface shows age and exposure, yet the line remains coherent in favourable light. See Figure 1 and Figure 2.
Viewing and approach matter. To see the motif clearly a person stands on the ledge facing the panel with the river sound in the background. From this stance the eddy below is visible, and the carving sits at a natural pause point along the slope. The motif is therefore more likely to be a description or locator than a distant warning. It reads as a record that makes sense to people who already know the bend and its behaviour. See Figure 3.
The rapid’s turbulence and entrained air produce a broadband roar that carries across the valley, with intensity expected to rise under higher discharge. The present feature is not ferocious, but the same morphology under greater flow would have produced a louder, more emphatic sound. The combination of a visible swirl and a persistent roar gives the place a distinctive acoustic identity.
Method note: doing archaeoacoustics with light fieldwork
This study is desk based with observations from a single site visit. Extrapolation from analogues and literature is justified here because the acoustic behaviour of rivers is well described at reach scale and because similar rock art settings have been measured in caves, gorges, and at monuments. Where possible I lean on published methods and findings rather than new instrumentation in order to minimise impact and to respect property and conservation limits (Kolar, 2018; Till, 2019; Cox, Fazenda and Greaney, 2020).
The approach has three tracks. First, a literature and analogue track. I treat the Ocreza reach as a confined rapid where turbulence, roughness, and air entrainment produce a broadband roar that is audible at distance. This is consistent with river soundscape studies and with acoustic siting observed at open air panels elsewhere. The aim is to use what is already known about river noise and echo rich settings to frame the Ocreza spiral in a way that can be tested against the Tagus corpus.
Second, a minimal field protocol that could be added later with permission and without intrusive methods. A short soundwalk would log one to two minute recordings at a few stances that matter for viewing and listening. Basic metrics like LAeq can be extracted from smartphone recordings offline. A simple impulse response can be captured with a hand clap or balloon pop if this is safe and allowed. Short hydrophone snapshots can document underwater turbulence if access is straightforward and conditions are stable. Each clip should be paired with clear metadata that notes date and time, weather, water level if known, stance location, and camera view to the river. No chalking or contact tracing would be used. Photogrammetry of the panel may be added only under permit and in ways consistent with conservation guidelines (Kolar, 2018; Till, 2019).
Third, a light modelling and auralisation track for communication rather than proof. Existing impulse responses from comparable gorges and generic rapid recordings can be convolved to create short audio illustrations of what a listener might experience from the stance. Physical scale modelling is a powerful technique at monuments like Stonehenge, but it is not required here and is noted mainly as a precedent for rigorous reconstruction when direct measurement is restricted (Cox, Fazenda and Greaney, 2020). The emphasis in this paper remains on clearly stated criteria that others can test in the Tagus basin.
Desk based mapping supports these tracks. Known spirals and circular signs in the Tagus can be plotted against channel confinement and likely hydraulic features. Simple measures include distance to nearest rapid or eddy, panel orientation relative to flow where photographs allow it, and the presence of grooves or basins that might interact with rain or spray. A first pass can compare frequencies near turbulent reaches to those along quiet runs. Even coarse results will show whether the Ocreza spiral is an outlier or part of a repeatable pattern. Figure 6 shows a simplified schematic of panel, stance, flow, and eddy.
All of this sits under a simple rule. Offer testable claims, accept the limits of present conditions, and keep the work traceable. The goal is not to force a meaning but to set out a path that allows the water reading to gain or lose weight as new data are added.
Discussion: what the spiral does
If the Ocreza spiral sits above a turbulent reach with a visible swirl and a persistent roar, the motif can be read as a local soundmark. It would draw attention to the bend and encode what listeners already knew. It may have served a cautionary role or acted as a mnemonic that fixed a story to a place. The carving also invites a performative reading. A maker stands at the ledge, turns the wrist in a continuous motion, and traces a curve that echoes the rotating foam below. Body, water, and mark align in a way that makes the place memorable.
Alternative readings remain viable. A solar reading is possible because the motif becomes clearer in strong light and can brighten when the sun is low. A path reading is possible if the ledge served as a natural pause along a local route. None of these roles exclude the others. A single mark can be polysemous and work in more than one register.
The test is at the landscape scale. If similar spirals cluster near rapids and eddies more than they do near calm pools, if they face toward flow, and if they tend to coexist with grooves or basins that interact with rain or spray, then a water reading carries more weight. If the opposite pattern holds, the reading weakens. The point is not to win an argument now but to show exactly what evidence would move the needle.
Conclusion: hearing deep history
This paper sets out a cautious case that the Ocreza spiral records a local soundscape. The reach below the panel is confined and noisy. The eddy is visible from the stance and the roar is audible at distance. Rivers are known to produce stable acoustic signatures, and rock art is often placed where sound behaviour is striking. The water reading is not exclusive and it does not displace other interpretations. It gains plausibility only if it holds up across the Tagus basin and beyond. That is a tractable task. The steps are clear and the methods are light. The broader value is simple. Listening belongs with looking when we try to understand how and why people made marks in places like this.
Works Cited
Bradley, R. (1997) Rock Art and the Prehistory of Atlantic Europe: Signing the Land. London: Routledge.
Cox, T. J., Fazenda, B. M. and Greaney, S. E. (2020) ‘Using scale modelling to assess the prehistoric acoustics of Stonehenge’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 122, 105218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2020.105218
Danelatos, D. (2022) The Upper Palaeolithic Rock Art in the Tagus Valley Rock Art Complex: Context, Style and Chronology. Master’s thesis, Instituto Politécnico de Tomar.
Díaz-Andreu, M. and García Benito, C. (2012) ‘Acoustics and Levantine rock art: Auditory perceptions in La Valltorta Gorge (Spain)’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 39(12), pp. 3591–3599. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.06.034
Geay, T., Gervaise, C., Roulund, A. and Perret, C. (2019) ‘On the origin of acoustic waves generated by water flows in rivers’, Earth Surface Dynamics, 7, pp. 301–316. https://doi.org/10.5194/esurf-7-301-2019
Goldhahn, J. (2002) ‘Roaring rocks: An audio-visual perspective on hunter-gatherer engravings in northern Sweden and Scandinavia’, Norwegian Archaeological Review, 35(1), pp. 29–61.
Kolar, M. A. (2018) ‘Archaeoacoustics: Re-sounding material culture’, Acoustics Today, 14(4), pp. 28–37.
Mattioli, T., Farina, A., Armelloni, E., Hameau, P. and Díaz-Andreu, M. (2017) ‘Echoing landscapes: Echolocation and the placement of rock art in the Central Mediterranean’, Journal of Archaeological Science, 83, pp. 12–25. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2017.04.008
Nash, G. and Garcês, S. (eds) (2023) The Prehistoric Rock Art of Portugal. Abingdon: Routledge.
Pijanowski, B. C., Villanueva-Rivera, L. J., Dumyahn, S. L., Farina, A., Krause, B. L., Napoletano, B. M., Gage, S. H. and Pieretti, N. (2011) ‘Soundscape ecology: The science of sound in the landscape’, BioScience, 61(3), pp. 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1525/bio.2011.61.3.6
Rainio, R., Aro, A., Lahelma, A., Äikäs, T., Lassila, M. and Oikkonen, J. (2025) ‘Reflected encounters at hunter-gatherer rock art sites’, Public Archaeology, 24(1), online first.
Rountree, R. A., Juanes, F. and Bolgan, M. (2020) ‘Temperate freshwater soundscapes: A cacophony of undescribed biological sounds now threatened by anthropogenic noise’, PLOS ONE, 15(3), e0221842. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221842
Schafer, R. M. (1994) The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books.
Tatum, T. A., Anderson, J. F. and Ronan, T. J. (2023) ‘Whitewater sound dependence on discharge and wave configuration at an adjustable wave feature’, Water Resources Research, 59(8). https://doi.org/10.1029/2022WR033802
Tonolla, D., Lorang, M. S., Heutschi, K., Gotschalk, C. C. and Tockner, K. (2011) ‘Characterization of spatial heterogeneity in underwater soundscapes at the river segment scale’, Limnology and Oceanography, 56(6), pp. 2319–2333. https://doi.org/10.4319/lo.2011.56.6.2319
Watson, A. and Keating, D. (1999) ‘Architecture and sound: An acoustic analysis of megalithic monuments in prehistoric Britain’, Antiquity, 73(280), pp. 325–336.
Wikman, V. (2022) ‘The water symbolism that is filling up the cupules and flowing through the cup and ring marks’, Adoranten, pp. 126–145.
Picture a small group gathered at twilight. Sparks rise. Meat crackles. Tubers sweeten. Voices soften as the night pulls tight around a glow that feeds bodies and quiets fear. If there is a single scene where biology, culture, and meaning braided together into something recognizably human, it is the hearth. This is a story of energy and enzymes, of smoke and ash, of kin and strangers who learned to sit close without claws. It is also a story of wonder. The question is simple and audacious. Did the hearth become the first altar?
I think the answer is yes in spirit and maybe in fact. Here is why.
Fire changed our bodies
Cooking does not only make food tasty. It changes the math of life. Thermal processing breaks cell walls, denatures proteins, gelatinizes starch, and kills pathogens. That means more calories are available with less work by the gut. Experiments that measured energy gain directly show what many of us have felt since childhood when we discovered roasted marshmallows are suspiciously satisfying. In controlled studies, mammals fed cooked meat or cooked starchy plants get more usable energy and gain more mass than those fed the same foods raw, even when activity and intake are held constant. The energetic edge of cooking is large enough to matter in evolution.
This energy story links to a second line of evidence about brains, bodies, and time. Human brains are expensive organs. They burn an outrageous share of our resting metabolism. Analyses of neuronal counts and feeding time argue that a raw diet places a ceiling on brain size because there are not enough daylight hours to chew and digest what a large brain would cost. The path out of that bottleneck is higher energy yield per bite. Cooking is the obvious route.
Put these findings together and you have a clean argument. Cooking raises net energy yield from key foods. Once control of fire becomes routine, hominins can afford smaller guts and larger brains while spending fewer hours feeding. That is an evolutionary bargain with downstream effects on everything from dental anatomy to daily schedules. The claim is not dogma. It is a working model with experimental support and a plausible ecological pathway.
Fire entered the archaeological record, then took over
How early did our ancestors use fire inside spaces they lived in rather than dodge wildfires and carry embers? Secure evidence now reaches back roughly one million years. Microstratigraphic work at Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa shows ash and burned bone in place far inside the cave. These are not traces blown in by wind or washed by water. They are residues of combustion where people lived. This is the earliest widely accepted in situ fire in an archaeological context.
By around seven hundred eighty thousand years ago in the Levant, the pattern becomes richer. At Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, the distribution of burned flint, seeds, and wood fragments is localized rather than random. The spatial pattern suggests repeated burning at specific spots, very likely hearths, and therefore control rather than mere encounter. Later work even used thermoluminescence and spatial modeling to evaluate fire intensity across activity areas. The signal is behavioral, not accidental.
By three hundred to four hundred thousand years ago, in several regions, fire use becomes habitual rather than sporadic. In Europe, a broad review concluded that routine, repeated fire appears surprisingly late and becomes common only after roughly four hundred to three hundred thousand years. That late takeoff matters because once fire is dependable, it can structure how people butcher, cook, and share, not just how they warm their hands.
Qesem Cave in Israel shows what habitual fire looks like on the ground. There, researchers documented repeated use of a central hearth over many occupation episodes, with associated cut marks, bone breakage for marrow extraction, and blade production nearby. The hearth sat in the middle like a social machine, and activities radiated from it in a way that feels familiar to anyone who has stood in a busy kitchen while everything important happens around the stove.
Fire reshaped daily life and social structure
Energy freed time. Light extended day. Warmth pulled people into closer proximity. Those ecological changes created social opportunities. A central hearth encourages central place foraging and delays consumption. Meat need not be devoured on the spot with blood still warm. It can be brought home, roasted, and shared. Archaeofaunal evidence at Qesem Cave shows exactly that picture. Carcass transport was selective, processing was organized near the fire, and meat sharing is the best explanation for the pattern of broken bones and cut marks. Sharing is not a moral lesson here. It is a logistical solution that turns dangerous hunts into reliable meals and reputations.
We can also watch what people do with the night once they have a pool of light. Ethnographic studies of foragers in the Kalahari compared conversations by day and by firelight. Day talk leans toward work and social friction. Night talk tilts to stories, music, and ritual. Firelight changes the subject and, over time, culture itself. Narratives travel further than meat and last longer than embers. The result is a quiet revolution. Fire stabilizes calories and it also stabilizes meaning.
There is even evidence that watching fire can lower blood pressure, especially when sound is present. That is one small physiological clue to what our ancestors might have felt as the flames settled into a rhythm and voices slowed. Calm is not a trivial byproduct. A calmer group can sit longer, listen harder, and agree on things that matter.
What cooking did to the senses
A cooked meal is a symphony of chemistry. Starch molecules swell and uncoil. Proteins denature and form new bonds. Fats render and carry volatile compounds up into the nose before a bite is taken. The Maillard reaction paints a signal of readiness on meat and tubers alike. These changes do not only entice. They shortcut digestion. Mice do not need to know molecular biology to show weight gain differences when given cooked versus raw diets under controlled conditions. They just do. Humans, with larger brains and bodies that evolved under selection for higher energy throughput, would have felt the edge even more.
Add light and sound and you get a full sensory ecology. Firelight is warm and flickering. It reduces blue wavelengths that keep us hyper alert and replaces them with long wavelengths that flatter skin and wood. Crackle adds an auditory metronome that masks small noises in the dark and draws a crowd to one focal point. The combined audiovisual stimulus relaxes people measurably in experiments. That is not mystical. It is nervous system math. And it is one reason storytelling thrives at night by the flames.
The hearth made space sacred
If we take animism seriously, the hearth is not only a tool. It is a presence. It devours and gives. It demands attention and rewards devotion. Archaeology cannot read prayers. It can map ash and analyze bone fat. Even so, there are moments when the pattern looks like ceremony.
Start with the simplest case. A central hearth used again and again in the same place over centuries signals more than convenience. It speaks to a mental map of home that anchors bodies and remembers events. Qesem Cave offers that exact signature. Micromorphology shows superimposed ash lenses and heat altered sediments stacked like rings of a tree. People returned to one living flame that marked the center of their social world. That is the structure of a shrine whether or not anyone would have used that word.
Move forward in deep history and the relationship between fire and symbol grows overt. In Central Europe during the Gravettian, people fired small clay figures in simple kilns at sites like Dolní Věstonice. These are some of the earliest ceramics on Earth and they are art, not pots. They required careful control of temperature and atmosphere, which means planning, skill, and shared knowledge around fire. We can argue about what the figures meant. We cannot argue that fire became a partner in deliberate acts of making that blur utility and ritual.
Now widen the lens beyond prehistory. Across many later traditions the hearth is a formal sacred focus, from Hestia in Greek religion to Vesta in Roman public life. This is not a proof that early hearths were altars. It does show a durable human habit of treating domestic fire as a bearer of order, purity, and continuity between household and cosmos. When a pattern endures across time and culture, it is at least reasonable to look for its roots in older behavior.
Costs and complications
Fire is not a free lunch. Smoke damages lungs, eyes, and hearts. Sparks burn children and old kin. Sparks also burn landscapes when wind rises. Archaeologists debate whether the earliest fire signals reflect regular control or opportunistic use. In Europe there is a long stretch where occupation spreads into cold latitudes without strong evidence for routine fire indoors. That caution matters. The simplest picture is not always the true one. Still, by three hundred to four hundred thousand years ago, the material record in multiple regions shows fire integrated into daily life and food processing, and after that the social and sensory consequences would have been hard to reverse.
There is also the honest point that brain size trends and fire control timelines do not line up perfectly. Some researchers argue that significant encephalization predates routine cooking. That is a real challenge and a good reminder that evolution is a braid of causes, not a straight pipeline. Even so, when you look at energy budgets, digestive anatomy, and the clear performance edge of cooked foods, cooking still reads as a major amplifier of the human niche rather than a minor garnish.
So did the hearth become the first altar?
Altar is a heavy word. It implies offering and presence and a shared grammar of reverence. In that strict sense, formal altars come later with architecture and priests. But if we loosen the term to mean a place where matter and meaning meet under a rule of attention, then yes. The hearth is our proto altar.
It is where we first learned to trade the chaos of the night for a circle of light, to slow down enough to tell stories and remember them, to transform the raw into the good through a repeated act that felt both practical and profound. It is where we learned that devotion has a form. Feed the fire. Watch it. Share what it makes possible. Do not look away when it needs care. That is ritual in every sense that matters, and it changes the people who practice it.
As a Stoic would note, fire teaches discipline and acceptance. You do not control the flame fully. You work with it. You prepare, you attend, you respond. As a Nordic animist might say, fire has a spirit. It is alive enough to negotiate with, worthy of respect, and dangerous without it. As a Zen practitioner would add, fire is the breath made visible, a present moment that radiates and fades. Daoists would smile and call it one more way the ten thousand things move in balance. No doctrine necessary. Sit quietly and watch the coals. You will feel what our ancestors felt.
A last image
Imagine a child at the edge of a Paleolithic hearth. The child is drowsy and full. On a flat stone, a parent sets roasted marrow bones. On another, a tuber splits and steams. Voices braid a story of a hunt and a flood and an ancestor who became a star. Sparks climb. The child stares into the red and sees patterns. The first altars did not need temples. They needed only fire, food, and faces close enough to care.
That is how cooking created the human spirit. Not by magic, but by energy and attention, by making a place where we could be fully animal and more than animal at once. The hearth did not just feed us. It formed us.
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Works Cited
Alperson Afil, N. 2008. Continual fire making by hominins at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. Quaternary Science Reviews 27.
Alperson Afil, N., and N. Goren Inbar. 2004. Evidence of hominin control of fire at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Israel. Science 304.
Barkai, R., A. Gopher, and colleagues. 2014. Evidence for the repeated use of a central hearth at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 44.
Berna, F., P. Goldberg, L. K. Horwitz, J. Brink, S. Holt, M. Bamford, and M. Chazan. 2012. Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Carmody, R. N., and R. W. Wrangham. 2009. The energetic significance of cooking. Journal of Human Evolution 57.
Carmody, R. N., Z. Weintraub, and R. W. Wrangham. 2011. Energetic consequences of thermal and nonthermal food processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Gopher, A., R. Barkai, M. C. Stiner, and colleagues. 2011. Hearth side socioeconomics, hunting and paleoecology during the late Lower Paleolithic at Qesem Cave, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution 60.
Herculano Houzel, S., and K. Fonseca Azevedo. 2012. Metabolic constraint imposes a tradeoff between body size and number of brain neurons in human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 109.
Henry, A. G., A. S. Brooks, and D. R. Piperno. 2011. Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.
Karkanas, P., R. Shahack Gross, F. Berna, C. Lemorini, A. Gopher, and R. Barkai. 2014. Evidence for the repeated use of a central hearth at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 44.
Karkanas, P., and S. Weiner. 2011. Microarchaeological approaches to the identification and interpretation of combustion features in prehistoric sites. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 18.
Lynn, C. D. 2014. Hearth and campfire influences on arterial blood pressure. Evolutionary Psychology 12.
Roebroeks, W., and P. Villa. 2011. On the earliest evidence for habitual use of fire in Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 108.
Shahack Gross, R., F. Berna, P. Karkanas, C. Lemorini, A. Gopher, and R. Barkai. 2014. Evidence for the repeated use of a central hearth at Middle Pleistocene Qesem Cave, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 44.
Shimelmitz, R., A. Gopher, R. Barkai, and colleagues. 2014. Fire at will. The emergence of habitual fire use three hundred fifty thousand years ago. Journal of Human Evolution 77.
Stiner, M. C., R. Barkai, and A. Gopher. 2011. Hearth side socioeconomics at Qesem Cave, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution 60.
Wiessner, P. 2014. Embers of society. Firelight talk among the Ju/’hoansi. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 111.
Wrangham, R. W. 2009. Catching Fire. How Cooking Made Us Human. (book widely cited in the literature on the cooking hypothesis). For experimental and review work linked to the hypothesis see Carmody and colleagues above.
Further references on fire, ritual, and symbol
Burkert, W. 1985. Greek Religion. Archaic and Classical. Harvard University Press. On Hestia and the sacral role of the civic hearth.
Gordon, R. 2016. Vesta, Vestals. Oxford Classical Dictionary. A reliable summary of the Roman hearth cult as public religion.
Vandiver, P. B. 1987 and later work cited in: “The Origins of Ceramic Technology at Dolní Věstonice.” American Anthropologist 89. For an early synthesis on fired clay figurines as a fire using technology connected to symbolic action.
Recent imaging studies on the Dolní Věstonice figurines. See micro computed tomography investigation of the fired clay Venus and background on Pavlovian ceramics. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2024.
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Author’s note: The citations above anchor the main claims. Debates continue about timing and causation. That is the work. But the outline is strong. Fire increased net energy, reconfigured time and space, and pulled people into a circle where food and story could be shared. That circle looks a lot like the first altar.
Across the deep past of our lineage, few questions generate as much debate as whether a hominin buried its dead. The practice is often seen as a hallmark of humanity: a line crossed into symbolic thought, planning, and perhaps even ritual. Yet the truth is more complicated. What counts as a burial? How do we distinguish intentional placement from natural processes such as sediment collapse or animal activity? And why does this matter so much—for both how we interpret our ancestors and how we see ourselves?
This feature explores three major players in the burial debate: Homo naledi, Neanderthals, and our own species, Homo sapiens. Each presents tantalizing evidence, controversy, and significant implications. Along the way, we examine how scientists differentiate graves from accidents and consider the ethical questions around handling the dead.
Homo naledi: Burials in the Rising Star Cave?
In 2013, explorers entered South Africa’s Rising Star Cave system and retrieved fossils unlike any seen before: small-brained, primitive-bodied hominins that lived around 250,000 years ago. Named Homo naledi, they rewrote textbooks by surviving contemporaneously with early modern humans.
Soon after, a bold claim emerged: the fossils were not scattered by floods or predators but deliberately placed in deep chambers, perhaps covered with sediment—suggesting intentional burial. This made global headlines. A small-brained hominin, with a cranial capacity of 465–610 cc, engaging in behaviors once thought unique to humans? The idea shocked the field.
The most recent updates, published in eLife (2025), describe articulated skeletal regions preserved in matrix, interpreted as rapid covering prior to decomposition. To the excavators, this pattern indicates intentional burial, repeated multiple times.
Not everyone agrees. Critics, including a 2024 Journal of Human Evolution paper, argue that the sedimentology remains inconclusive, clear grave cuts have not been demonstrated, and natural deposition has not been ruled out. Skeptics also note the caves’ inaccessibility and question whether bodies could have arrived without deliberate action.
The debate boils down to this: if naledi buried their dead, mortuary behavior may have evolved independently across hominins, uncoupled from brain size. If they did not, naledi still present a fascinating depositional mystery, and the debate itself strengthens archaeological methods.
Neanderthals: From Flowers to Skepticism
Few images are as enduring as the “flower burial” of Shanidar Cave in Iraq. In the 1960s, pollen clumps near a Neanderthal skeleton inspired romantic reconstructions of mourners laying blossoms on a grave. Later work showed the pollen could have been introduced by rodents—an early reminder of the risks of overinterpretation.
Even so, Neanderthal burials remain compelling. At Shanidar, reanalysis has revealed multiple individuals placed in shallow pits, some with flexed body positions. Across Europe and Western Asia—from La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France to Kebara in Israel—articulated skeletons appear in grave cuts, occasionally with ochre or objects.
Critics such as Paul Gargett have long urged caution. Yet the weight of evidence suggests that by 60–70,000 years ago, Neanderthals were consistently burying their dead. While less elaborate than later human rituals, these practices demonstrate repeated, intentional interment.
The question remains: why? Were burials practical—to deter scavengers or manage hygiene—or did they express grief, memory, and care? The most plausible answer is both.
Homo sapiens: Early Burials in the Middle Paleolithic
For our species, the record is equally intriguing. At Qafzeh and Skhul in Israel, burials from 100–120,000 years ago reveal deliberate interments, some with ochre and objects. Children and adults alike were carefully placed, sometimes in flexed positions.
In 2025, discoveries at Tinshemet Cave in Israel added further weight. Multiple burials dating to roughly 100,000 years ago were found with bodies in fetal positions and ochre staining. Researchers argue this represents a true burial tradition among early Homo sapiens in the Levant.
Unlike Neanderthals, sapiens burials often show symbolic associations—pigments, objects, and consistent placements. This does not prove Neanderthals lacked symbolism, but it highlights how early sapiens may have invested more heavily in ritual as part of their cultural identity.
Methods: How Do We Know It’s a Burial?
Distinguishing intentional burials from accidents requires multiple lines of evidence:
Sediment micromorphology: identifying cut edges, backfill, or disturbed layers.
Body articulation: determining whether bones stayed connected in ways requiring rapid covering.
Taphonomic context: checking for carnivore gnawing, water sorting, or collapse versus deliberate placement.
Geochemistry: analyzing phosphate concentrations, ochre traces, and mineral profiles.
Dating precision: ensuring deposits are contemporaneous and not mixed by later disturbance.
These methods explain why naledi remains are controversial—several indicators are disputed, and independent replication is needed.
Ethics: Whose Dead Are These?
The burial debate is not just scientific; it is ethical. Labeling something a “burial” implies intention, ritual, and meaning. That symbolism can shape how modern societies view both the past and themselves.
Treatment of remains also matters. Should hominin skeletons remain in labs and museums indefinitely? Should some be reburied, particularly where descendant communities or cultural connections exist? Many anthropologists today emphasize collaboration with local groups, transparency in excavation, and avoiding sensationalism.
The naledi case underscores how headlines can outpace peer review. Declaring symbolic burial by a small-brained species is not just academic; it reshapes public narratives about intelligence, humanity, and dignity.
Synthesis: A Graded Emergence
Taken together, the evidence suggests burial was not a single “spark” but a mosaic emerging across our genus:
Homo naledi — if deliberate, shows mortuary behavior in a small-brained species; if not, remains a cautionary case in interpretation.
Neanderthals — consistent yet simple burials, reflecting social care and possible symbolic meaning.
Early Homo sapiens — embedding burial within ritual, pigment use, and tradition.
The boundary between “us” and “them” blurs. Burial was not a uniquely modern human invention, but part of a deeper, more complex story of how hominins made sense of death.
References
Berna, F., Goldberg, P., Horwitz, L. K., Brink, J., Holt, S., Bamford, M., & Chazan, M. (2012). Microstratigraphic evidence of in situ fire in the Acheulean strata of Wonderwerk Cave, Northern Cape province, South Africa. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(20), E1215–E1220. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1117620109
Dirks, P. H., Berger, L. R., Roberts, E. M., Kramers, J. D., Hawks, J., Randolph-Quinney, P. S., … & Elliott, M. (2017). The age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa. eLife, 6, e24231. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.24231
Hovers, E., & Belfer-Cohen, A. (2013). On variability and complexity: Lessons from Levantine Middle Paleolithic burial practices. In N. J. Conard & J. Zeidi (Eds.), The Paleolithic of the Levant (pp. 395–418). Tübingen: Kerns Verlag.
Pomeroy, E., Soficaru, A., & Trinkaus, E. (2020). The human burial record of the Middle Paleolithic. Journal of Human Evolution, 146, 102867. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2020.102867
Rendu, W., Beauval, C., Crevecoeur, I., Bayle, P., Balzeau, A., Bismuth, T., … & Tillier, A. M. (2014). Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(1), 81–86. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316780110
Reich, D., Green, R. E., Kircher, M., Krause, J., Patterson, N., Durand, E. Y., … & Pääbo, S. (2010). Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature, 468(7327), 1053–1060. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09710
Shea, J. J. (2011). Homo sapiens is as Homo sapiens was: Behavioral variability versus “behavioral modernity” in Paleolithic archaeology. Current Anthropology, 52(1), 1–35. https://doi.org/10.1086/658067
Zaidner, Y., Weinstein-Evron, M., Yeshurun, R., & Hershkovitz, I. (2025). A Middle Paleolithic burial ground at Tinshemet Cave, Israel. Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02016-9
Imagine a cave somewhere in Ice Age Eurasia. A fire smolders low, smoke curling upward into the darkness. A group of Neanderthals huddles close, trading stories, sharpening tools. Suddenly, a stranger appears — stockier, broader-jawed, carrying something unfamiliar: a greenstone bead, maybe, or a tool chipped in a style just slightly different. What happens next? Trade? Curiosity? Suspicion? Maybe all three.
That’s the spark for this week’s journey — exploring the little-known cultural remix between Neanderthals and Denisovans. We usually hear about modern humans and their encounters with Neanderthals, but Neanderthal–Denisovan interaction is a quieter story, hiding in fragments of bone, DNA, and a handful of tools. And yet, the few traces we have suggest a fascinating world where two archaic cousins may have swapped genes, ideas, and perhaps even symbols.
Who Were the Denisovans?
The Denisovans are one of the most enigmatic branches on our human family tree. First identified in 2010 from DNA extracted out of a finger bone found in Denisova Cave (Siberia), they’ve since been revealed as a widespread but ghostly presence across Asia (Reich et al., 2010). Genomic studies show that Denisovans interbred with both Neanderthals and modern humans, leaving traces in populations from Tibet to Oceania (Browning et al., 2018).
Archaeologically, though, Denisovans are slippery. We don’t have a nice suite of skeletons to study — just a few teeth, bone fragments, and genetic fingerprints. But the cave where they were discovered — Denisova Cave — also preserves an archaeological record shared with Neanderthals. This overlap gives us a rare window into how the two groups might have interacted.
Neanderthals and Denisovans: Neighbors in the Same Cave
Denisova Cave is the ultimate Ice Age roommate situation. Layers show that both Denisovans and Neanderthals occupied it at different times, sometimes overlapping. In fact, genetic evidence from one extraordinary individual — the so-called “Denny,” a young girl — revealed that she was the direct offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father (Slon et al., 2018). That’s not just contact; that’s intimate entanglement.
So what else might have happened when these groups crossed paths? The archaeological material from the cave includes sophisticated stone tools, ornaments made of animal teeth, and even a striking green chlorite bracelet with drilled holes (Derevianko et al., 2015). While the exact maker isn’t always clear, these artifacts suggest that cultural creativity was alive and well — and potentially shared — among both groups.
Tools as Conversation
When archaeologists talk about “cultural exchange,” one of the best proxies is technology. Stone tools, after all, don’t fossilize genes but they do fossilize habits, preferences, and problem-solving strategies.
Neanderthals were masters of the Levallois technique — preparing a stone core so flakes could be struck in predictable shapes. Denisovans, while harder to pin down, also left behind advanced lithics in Denisova Cave, including bladelets and ornaments (Bailleul et al., 2020). The overlap of these traditions suggests more than coincidence. If both groups used the cave, it’s not impossible that one watched the other’s knapping style and adapted a trick or two.
Think of it as the Paleolithic version of “I like how you sharpened that scraper — mind if I try it?”
Shared Symbolism?
If tool styles were exchanged, could symbols be too? Neanderthals across Europe left hints of symbolic behavior — red ochre, perforated shells, engravings (Hoffmann et al., 2018). Denisovans, meanwhile, remain more elusive, but the chlorite bracelet from Denisova Cave shows a level of craftsmanship bordering on the ornamental.
Imagine the scene: a Denisovan craftsman drilling a bead or bracelet, and a Neanderthal stopping to watch, intrigued. Did ideas about adornment — about marking identity, belonging, or ritual — ripple between these groups? While we can’t say for certain, the possibility opens up tantalizing questions about shared symbolic vocabularies.
Genetics as Cultural Evidence
Genomics also gives us cultural clues. Interbreeding doesn’t just tell us about biology — it implies social interactions. The existence of hybrid offspring suggests moments of connection, negotiation, and perhaps the blending of traditions.
The case of “Denny” is a striking example: not only does she show direct Neanderthal–Denisovan mixing, but the genetic record also reveals that Denisovans carried bits of Neanderthal DNA from earlier encounters (Slon et al., 2018). This wasn’t a one-off. It suggests multiple episodes of contact across generations — enough time for cultural habits, as well as genes, to be passed along.
The Remix in Context
We often talk about “remix culture” today — blending music, art, or memes into something new. But remixing is one of the oldest human traditions. When groups meet, they swap not just DNA but tricks, techniques, and maybe even myths. Neanderthals and Denisovans weren’t just evolutionary curiosities; they were players in this remix, shaping each other in ways we’re only beginning to uncover.
Their exchanges didn’t leave behind a Spotify playlist, but they might echo in the hybrid genomes of today’s populations, in the layered toolkits of Ice Age caves, and in the faint traces of symbolism that suggest a shared human urge to mark meaning onto the world.
Conclusion
Neanderthal–Denisovan interaction is one of the more shadowy chapters in our story. But through genetics, archaeology, and a bit of imagination, we can begin to see how two groups of archaic humans — so often overshadowed by modern humans — might have blended lives and cultures. Their remix wasn’t recorded in full, but enough fragments survive to remind us that culture is never a closed system. Wherever humans (and near-humans) meet, exchange happens.
Maybe, just maybe, a Neanderthal once wore a Denisovan bracelet — and in that act, carried forward a spark of creativity that still hums in us today.
References
Bailleul, J., Bence Viola, T., Krivoshapkin, A. I., & Derevianko, A. P. (2020). Upper Paleolithic lithic industries from Denisova Cave: Technological and cultural insights. *Quaternary International, 559*, 44–58. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.04.007](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2020.04.007)
Browning, S. R., Browning, B. L., Zhou, Y., Tucci, S., & Akey, J. M. (2018). Analysis of human sequence data reveals two pulses of archaic Denisovan admixture. *Cell, 173*(1), 53–61. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.031](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2018.02.031)
Derevianko, A. P., Shunkov, M. V., Volkov, P. V., & Agadjanian, A. K. (2015). The Denisova Cave: Palaeolithic cultures of Central Asia. *Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia, 43*(3), 2–27. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeae.2015.12.001](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aeae.2015.12.001)
Hoffmann, D. L., Standish, C. D., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P. B., Milton, J. A., Zilhão, J., … & Pike, A. W. G. (2018). U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. *Science, 359*(6378), 912–915. [https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778](https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778)
Reich, D., Green, R. E., Kircher, M., Krause, J., Patterson, N., Durand, E. Y., … & Pääbo, S. (2010). Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. *Nature, 468*(7327), 1053–1060. [https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09710](https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09710)
Slon, V., Mafessoni, F., Vernot, B., de Filippo, C., Grote, S., Viola, B., … & Pääbo, S. (2018). The genome of the offspring of a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father. *Nature, 561*(7721), 113–116. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0455-x)
Paleolithic cave art often occupies deep, hard-to-reach chambers where light is scarce, surfaces vary, and the air itself feels different from the outside world. Traditional explanations for motif placement emphasize visibility, surface suitability, pigment access, and preservation bias. In recent decades, researchers have added a complementary, measurable factor to that list: acoustics. Echoes, resonances, and long low‑frequency decay change how a space feels and how sound behaves within it, and these sonic properties may have influenced where people sang, drummed, performed, and painted (Fazenda et al., 2017; Till, 2019). This article synthesizes the core empirical work, explains the methods used to measure a cave’s “voice,” surveys key case studies, and outlines interpretive frameworks linking acoustics with ritual practice, memory, and symbolic cognition.
Why acoustics matter
Spaces invite action through their sensory affordances. A chamber that produces strong low‑frequency resonance creates a bodily sensation — a chest‑filling vibration and a long decay — that differs markedly from the sonic experience in an open shelter or a shallow alcove. Echoes and reverberation alter intelligibility, change the perceived emotional weight of voice, and reshape the perception of rhythm and pitch. Across many cultures, resonant spaces are central to ritualized sound-making: drumming structures time, chant synchronizes groups, and acoustics amplify presence (Till, 2019). If Paleolithic people noticed these affordances, they may have preferred acoustically rich niches for performance and then marked those places visually; thus image and sound could have been co‑produced in ritual contexts (Fazenda et al., 2017; Miyagawa et al., 2018).
The state of evidence
Archaeoacoustics has moved from anecdote to systematic inquiry. Earlier observational notes documented curious coincidences between motifs and acoustic quirks; subsequent work introduced standard acoustic measures and larger sampling strategies. The strongest empirical work comes from grid‑based impulse‑response surveys carried out in decorated caves, where dense acoustic sampling has been paired with precise mapping of motifs. These studies report a modest but repeatable pattern: abstract marks (dots, lines, punctuations) are disproportionately found at positions with moderate reverberation and measurable low‑frequency resonances (Fazenda et al., 2017). Reviews and comparative studies corroborate that acoustics are a plausible variable influencing motif placement (Till, 2019; Díaz‑Andreu & García Benito, 2012).
Important caveats remain. Acoustic measurements are highly sensitive to microphone position, environmental conditions (humidity, water flow), and human presence. Taphonomic processes filter which motifs survive for us to sample, and deep chambers may have been chosen for reasons (privacy, initiatory control) that correlate with acoustic traits. Consequently, observed correlations do not amount to proof of intentional sonic selection. Instead, acoustics provide an independent, testable axis for evaluating competing explanations of where and why people decorated caves (Fazenda et al., 2017; Reznikoff & Dauvois, 1988).
Methods: measuring a cave’s voice
Field archaeoacoustics adapts tools from architectural acoustics to fragile archaeological contexts. Researchers map decorated surfaces, establish measurement grids, and record impulse responses that describe how a space reacts to a short, broadband input. The modern standard is a sine‑sweep played through an omnidirectional speaker, recorded with calibrated microphones and deconvolved to produce high‑fidelity impulse responses across frequency bands (Till, 2019).
From those impulse responses researchers extract metrics such as reverberation time (T30/T60), early decay time (EDT), speech‑transmission indices approximating intelligibility (STI), clarity indices (C80), and spectral analyses that reveal low‑frequency peaks or modal behaviour. Good practice pairs acoustic metrics with archaeological variables — distance from the entrance, wall smoothness, motif type and density, hearths, and artifact concentrations — and uses matched control points and spatial statistics to test whether motif placement is associated with specific acoustic signatures (Fazenda et al., 2017). Perceptual experiments in which listeners judge recordings or simulations help link measurable acoustics to emotional and mnemonic responses (Miyagawa et al., 2018).
Because acoustic fields are condition‑sensitive, reproducible research requires careful logging of temperature, humidity, and water flow, as well as open data so other teams can verify patterns across seasons and sites (Till, 2019).
Case studies and comparative notes
La Garma and several Spanish sites offer some of the clearest empirical evidence. Dense grid sampling paired with meticulous archaeological mapping found that abstract marks clustered in acoustically distinctive niches; the study stands out for its sample size and transparent controls (Fazenda et al., 2017). In Cantabria, including El Castillo, several of Europe’s oldest motifs occur in deep chambers with long decay times and pronounced low‑frequency energy; these patterns are testable against preservation and access explanations (Fazenda et al., 2017; Reznikoff & Dauvois, 1988).
The Hal‑Saflieni Hypogeum in Malta—Neolithic rather than Paleolithic—demonstrates that subterranean spaces can exhibit discrete spectral peaks and that architecture can be used to create or exploit resonant properties (Wolfe, Swanson, & Till, 2020). Comparative research that systematically contrasts decorated and undecorated caves of similar geology, accessibility, and surface quality remains a priority. If acoustic hotspots persist as a distinguishing feature after careful control, the case for intentional or opportunistic use of sound strengthens (Díaz‑Andreu & García Benito, 2012).
Interpretive frameworks
Three overlapping frameworks help translate acoustic observations into behavioral hypotheses. The performance and ritual framework proposes that resonant chambers supported communal sound‑making—drumming, chanting, low‑pitched vocalization—and that visual marks served as backdrops, sequence markers, or durable traces of ritual events (Till, 2019). The mnemonic mapping framework suggests that visual marks anchor fleeting sonic episodes into spatial memory, providing cues for recalling sequences, songs, or actions associated with a place (Miyagawa et al., 2018). The cross‑modal practice framework argues that translating auditory experience into visual tokens exercises abstraction and symbolic mapping; repeated cross‑modal practices could, over generations, scaffold representational capacities and contribute to the emergence of symbolic thought (Miyagawa et al., 2018).
These frameworks are compatible rather than exclusive: ritual performance may lead to mnemonic marking, and repeated cross‑modal practice may gradually foster symbolic cognition. Present data support plausibility and point to testable predictions rather than definitive conclusions (Fazenda et al., 2017; Till, 2019).
Conclusions and research priorities
Archaeoacoustics contributes a measurable sensory dimension to debates about parietal art. Quantitative studies show modest, repeatable associations between motifs and acoustic features in several decorated caves, and theoretical work links these patterns to ritual practice, memory, and symbolic cognition (Fazenda et al., 2017; Miyagawa et al., 2018; Till, 2019). Practical and conceptual challenges remain: acoustic measures are condition‑sensitive and require standardized protocols, and researchers must avoid single‑factor explanations that marginalize taphonomy, access, or surface suitability.
Near‑term priorities include building cross‑regional datasets that compare decorated and undecorated caves with robust archaeological controls, running controlled perceptual experiments to quantify human responses to resonant soundscapes, and creating open repositories for impulse‑response data paired with archaeological metadata. Longer‑term work should integrate acoustic data with cognitive neuroscience and ethnographic analogues to test whether repeated cross‑modal practice plausibly supports the emergence of symbolic behaviors. Treating caves as multisensory contexts moves archaeology toward a more embodied understanding of prehistoric practice.
References (APA 7th edition)
Fazenda, B., Scarre, C., Till, R., Jiménez Pasalodos, R., Ontañón Peredo, R., Watson, A., Wyatt, S., García Benito, C., Drinkall, H., & Foulds, F. (2017). Cave acoustics in prehistory: Exploring the association of Palaeolithic visual motifs and acoustic response. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 142(3), 1332–1349. https://doi.org/10.1121/1.4998721
Miyagawa, S., Clark, A., Blasi, D., & Cysouw, M. (2018). Cross-modality information transfer: Cave art as cross-modal mapping. Frontiers in Psychology.https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00077
Díaz-Andreu, M., & García Benito, C. (2012). Acoustics and Levantine rock art: Auditory perceptions in rock art landscapes. Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Till, R. (2019). Sound archaeology: A study of the acoustics of three world heritage sites, Spanish prehistoric painted caves, Stonehenge, and Paphos Theatre. Acoustics, 1(3), 661–692. https://doi.org/10.3390/acoustics1030039
Wolfe, K., Swanson, D., & Till, R. (2020). The frequency spectrum and geometry of the Hal Saflieni Hypogeum appear tuned. arXiv.https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.13697
Reznikoff, I., & Dauvois, M. (1988). La dimension sonore des grottes ornées. Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française.
If archaeology were a choir, stone screams. Stone is loud, enduring, unyielding—it holds our attention across tens of thousands, sometimes millions, of years. But wood? Wood is the soft voice almost always lost to time. And yet, in the Paleolithic world, wood may have been just as vital—perhaps even more so—than stone. For every flake of obsidian or hand axe of quartzite we admire in museum cases, there might once have been ten wooden digging sticks, spears, handles, baskets, or bows that left no trace.
This absence skews our imagination. We tell ourselves a story of human ingenuity based on what survives, not necessarily on what was most important. Today, let’s bring that missing half of the toolkit into focus. Let’s listen for the quiet voice of wood.
Why Wood Vanishes
Wood is organic—vulnerable to rot, fungi, insects, fire, and the slow grind of time. For it to survive tens of thousands of years, preservation must be almost miraculous: waterlogged peat bogs, desert aridity, volcanic ash, or frozen tundra. Even then, what endures is only a fraction of what once existed. The Paleolithic record is therefore a biased ledger—stone has filled the pages, while wood and fiber technologies have been erased.
So we must ask: how different would our story of human evolution look if wood survived as faithfully as stone?
The Oldest Wooden Finds: Echoes Through Deep Time
The Schöningen Spears (Germany, ~300,000 years ago)
Eight remarkably preserved wooden spears, crafted by Homo heidelbergensis or early Neanderthals, sit at the center of this debate. Each was carefully shaped from spruce, balanced like a modern javelin, and hardened at the tip by fire. They are the oldest complete hunting weapons we have. Imagine how long people had been making wooden weapons before these ones, by chance, ended up in the right mud at the right time.
Clacton Spear Point (England, ~400,000 years ago)
A single spear tip of yew wood. Once dismissed as crude, closer study revealed sophistication—choosing tough, elastic material and shaping it for impact. It hints at a vanished tradition of woodworking stretching far earlier than Schöningen.
Kalambo Falls (Zambia, ~300,000–400,000 years ago)
Waterlogged conditions preserved digging sticks, wedges, and even notched logs, showing evidence of shaping and joining. This is not “mere survival”—this is technology.
Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Israel, ~780,000 years ago)
Charred wood fragments, alongside stone tools and plant remains, reveal controlled fire use and likely wooden implements. This site pushes woodworking traditions close to a million years back.
Fibers, Adhesives, and Composites: The Hidden Engineers
Wood was rarely used alone. Paired with fibers, sinew, and resins, it became part of composite technologies.
Fibers & Cordage: From twisted plant fibers at Abri du Maras (France, ~40,000 years ago) to basket impressions in clay, fibers reveal planning, dexterity, and perhaps division of labor.
Adhesives: Birch tar from sites like Campitello (Italy, ~200,000 years ago) demonstrates deliberate chemical processes—heating bark in low oxygen to create glue.
Composite Tools: Stone blades hafted to wooden shafts with resin and sinew blurred the line between simple tools and engineered systems.
The vanished wooden shafts were what made stone edges truly lethal.
Rebuilding the Toolkit from Shadows
When archaeologists reconstruct what a site may have looked like, the silence of wood looms large. A living Paleolithic camp might have been filled with:
Digging sticks for tubers and roots.
Spears and atlatls for hunting.
Baskets and trays for gathering.
Huts and windbreaks built from poles and branches.
Fire drills and hearth frames.
Infant carriers of woven fiber and wood.
In other words: the very infrastructure of daily life.
Stone was flashy, durable, and transportable. Wood was constant, practical, and everywhere.
Preservation Bias and Its Consequences
Because stone dominates the record, archaeologists once underestimated Paleolithic cognition. For decades, the story was: stone equals brains. But this is a mirage. The real brainpower may have gone into managing organic technology—planning harvest times for certain woods, mastering fire-hardening, weaving cordage, and maintaining composite tools.
If wood had survived, our timeline of “cognitive breakthroughs” might stretch back hundreds of thousands of years earlier.
Case Study: Neanderthals and the Wooden World
Neanderthals are often painted as stone-obsessed. But evidence tells a different story:
Schöningen shows they were master woodworkers.
Traces of cordage and birch tar adhesives prove planning and chemical skill.
Wear patterns on teeth and hands suggest constant work with fibers and wood.
Imagine a Neanderthal toolkit: stone flakes for quick jobs, but daily reliance on wooden handles, spears, baskets, and shelters. The archaeology of stone is just the tip of their cultural iceberg.
Lessons from Indigenous Knowledge
Ethnographic parallels remind us that wood and fiber technologies often dominate subsistence life. From Australian Aboriginal digging sticks to San foraging baskets, from Amazonian blowguns to Inuit sleds, wood has always been the infrastructure of survival. Stone is important, but wood shapes the rhythms of daily existence.
The Paleolithic was almost certainly no different.
The Humility Clause: What We’ll Never Fully Know
As much as we reconstruct, there is humility in acknowledging the unknowable. Most Paleolithic wooden objects are gone forever. Entire traditions—songs sung while weaving nets, preferred woods for cradles, regional joinery styles—are beyond recovery. But acknowledging that absence is itself a step toward a truer story.
Closing Reflections: Listening to the Quiet Voices
The Paleolithic wasn’t just a world of stone—it was a world of wood, fiber, sinew, and fire. By listening for what is missing, by filling silence with cautious imagination rooted in evidence, we give our ancestors back their full ingenuity.
Next time you see a stone tool behind glass, picture the missing half: the wooden handle, the spear shaft, the basket carried alongside. And imagine the forest that whispered it all into being.
Works Cited (Selections)
Conard, N. J., & Malina, M. (2006). Stone Age wood working at Schöningen. Nature, 444, 374–378.
Gowlett, J. A. J. (2006). The early settlement of northern Europe: Fire history in the context of climate change and the social brain. C.R. Palevol, 5(1–2), 299–310.
Hardy, B. L., et al. (2020). Direct evidence of fiber technology and production from the Upper Paleolithic. Scientific Reports, 10, 4889.
Mazza, P. P., et al. (2006). A new Palaeolithic discovery: Tar-hafted stone tools in Italy. Antiquity, 80(310), 661–671.
Thieme, H. (1997). Lower Palaeolithic hunting spears from Germany. Nature, 385, 807–810.
What makes us human? That’s a question that has shaped centuries of debate, sparked entire fields of research, and filled countless pages of philosophy, anthropology, and history. Yet, time and again, the answer draws us back to the same thread: our ability to make meaning through art and symbols.
From ochre markings in Paleolithic caves to the dazzling spectrum of modern creativity, symbolic thinking sits at the core of who we are. It’s not just about painting, carving, or composing. It’s about how humans have always taken the raw material of the world and shaped it into something that speaks beyond survival—toward imagination, identity, and community.
This fall, historian and educator Genevieve von Petzinger is offering a new live course through Roundtable.org, titled The Origins of Art and Symbolic Thinking. It’s an opportunity to not just learn about humanity’s creative roots but to step into the conversation yourself. And the best part? There are scholarships available to make it accessible to as many people as possible.
Why This Class Matters
The course dives into one of the most fascinating frontiers in human history: the emergence of symbolic expression. This is not just an academic footnote. It’s a story about identity—about when our ancestors first began to see the world not only as it was but as it could be imagined.
Genevieve is uniquely positioned to lead this journey. Her work has focused on the earliest known symbols and art in the archaeological record. These engravings, abstract shapes, and cave paintings speak volumes about the cognitive and cultural worlds of early humans. Through her scholarship and teaching, Genevieve makes these deep-time questions accessible and engaging to all learners, whether you’re new to the topic or a seasoned enthusiast.
This course isn’t simply about absorbing information. It’s about engaging with the debates and the evidence. When did symbolic thought truly begin? How do we define art in a deep history context? And what can ancient creativity teach us about the way we use symbols today—from emojis to digital avatars?
What You’ll Get Out of It
Here’s a taste of what participants can expect:
Deep Learning, Accessible FormatThe course is hosted live, meaning you’re not just watching a video but actively engaging in a classroom environment. You’ll have the chance to interact directly with Genevieve, ask questions, and join a community of curious minds.
A Journey Through TimeExpect to move from the earliest symbolic scratch marks left by Homo erectus and Neanderthals to the breathtaking cave art traditions of Homo sapiens. Each step adds to our understanding of how humans evolved not just biologically, but culturally.
Critical Thinking ToolsThis is more than a history lesson. Genevieve brings in discussions about how we interpret evidence, the role of creativity in evolution, and what counts as “art” in different contexts. These tools sharpen not just your understanding of the past, but your ability to reflect on the present.
Global and Inclusive PerspectivesRather than focusing only on the most famous European caves, the course highlights sites and traditions across continents, reminding us that the story of art is truly a shared human legacy.
Practical TakeawaysBeyond the lectures, you’ll leave with a clearer sense of why symbolic thinking matters in today’s world. Whether you’re in education, communication, design, or simply passionate about understanding humanity, the lessons carry over into everyday life.
The Scholarship Opportunity
One of the most exciting aspects of this offering is Genevieve’s commitment to making it accessible. Scholarships are available for participants who may not otherwise be able to join. This ensures the conversation isn’t limited to those with the means but remains as wide-reaching as the topic deserves.
If you’re interested in a scholarship, the process is straightforward: contact Genevieve directly. Depending on how you heard about the course, she’ll help guide you through the steps. This personal connection is part of what makes the class stand out—it isn’t just about enrolling; it’s about joining a dialogue led by someone deeply invested in her students’ experience.
By opening up scholarships, Genevieve is modeling the very spirit of symbolic thinking: ideas are meant to be shared, not hoarded. The origins of art belong to all of us, and this course is designed to reflect that inclusivity.
Who Should Take This Course?
The easy answer? Anyone curious about what it means to be human.
But to be more specific:
Students of History, Anthropology, or ArchaeologyGain insights that could complement your coursework and expand your understanding beyond the textbook.
Educators and CommunicatorsLearn new ways to frame and share humanity’s creative journey with your audiences.
Artists and DesignersExplore the deep roots of symbolic expression and connect your modern practice to a lineage stretching back tens of thousands of years.
Lifelong LearnersIf you’ve ever stared at a cave painting or an ancient carving and wondered why, this class is for you.
The Bigger Picture
Why does this matter now? Because the same symbolic thinking that once turned ochre into art is still shaping our world. It’s in the brands we trust, the memes we share, the rituals we practice, and the languages we speak.
Understanding the origins of these patterns isn’t just about appreciating history—it’s about recognizing the threads that continue to weave us together. By tracing art and symbols back to their beginnings, we gain perspective on how creativity has always been a survival tool, a form of communication, and a way of building community.
If the course excites you but cost is a barrier, reach out directly to Genevieve about scholarship options.
Final Thoughts
Every culture has its stories, symbols, and art. They are not luxuries, but necessities—ways of making sense of a complex world. By joining this course, you’ll step into a tradition as old as humanity itself: the conversation between past and present, meaning and material, imagination and reality.
Don’t miss this chance to learn from Genevieve and explore the very roots of human creativity. And remember: scholarships are available, so reach out if you need support. This story is for all of us.
Imagine stepping into the world of our ancestors—not through vision alone, but through the constant stream of sounds that framed daily life. Long before written symbols or cave paintings, sound was a primary medium through which early humans understood, navigated, and interpreted their environments. The creak of firewood, the rustle of prey in tall grass, the sudden hush that signaled danger—these auditory cues were not background noise but essential signals for survival, communication, and cultural expression. In this essay, we examine the prehistoric soundscape and its profound influence on human evolution and social life.
Sound has often been overshadowed by visual culture in archaeological interpretation, yet it was arguably more fundamental. Auditory stimuli surround individuals from birth to death, shaping cognition, attention, and collective identity. Reconstructing these soundscapes allows us to appreciate how auditory perception structured the lived realities of early humans.
The Earliest Human Soundscapes
For the earliest hominins—Australopithecus afarensis, Homo habilis, and Homo erectus—the natural environment was a dynamic soundscape. The calls of predators, the wingbeats of birds, and the crash of coastal waves carried ecological information critical for survival. Paleoecological research demonstrates that these habitats were saturated with ambient noise, from insect choruses to seasonal rainstorms (Dunbar, 2017). In this context, attentiveness to subtle differences in pitch, rhythm, or intensity could distinguish life-threatening signals from harmless background sounds.
The fossil record supports this emphasis on auditory acuity. Studies of the bony labyrinth—the structures of the inner ear—indicate that species such as Homo erectus possessed auditory ranges optimized for detecting higher frequencies compared to non-human primates (Quam & Rak, 2008). This physiological adaptation enhanced the ability to parse complex soundscapes, setting the stage for the eventual emergence of language.
Ethnographic data strengthen these interpretations. For example, the San of southern Africa can identify dozens of animal calls, while the Hadza of Tanzania interpret bird sounds as guides to honey sources. These practices reveal continuities in the adaptive significance of sound. Sound did not merely accompany human activity; it structured it, from hunting coordination to territorial recognition. Early humans lived in worlds defined as much by what they heard as by what they saw.
The First Instruments and Music
Material traces of music emerge in the archaeological record tens of thousands of years ago. The Divje Babe bone, possibly a Neanderthal flute, dates to over 50,000 years ago and suggests that music-making may have extended beyond Homo sapiens (Turk et al., 1997). Though its interpretation remains contested, the artifact underscores the antiquity of musical behavior.
More definitive evidence comes from Aurignacian Europe, where flutes crafted from vulture bones and mammoth ivory, such as those from Geißenklösterle, date to approximately 40,000 years ago (Conard et al., 2009). These instruments required technical knowledge and intentional design, highlighting music’s social value.
Music functioned as more than entertainment. Ethnographic and cognitive studies demonstrate its role in social bonding, emotional regulation, and ritual cohesion (Cross, 2001). Lullabies soothed infants, rhythmic drumming synchronized group labor, and communal singing reinforced identity. The production and performance of music were therefore adaptive behaviors that contributed to group stability and cooperation. Far from a peripheral activity, music was central to human survival strategies.
The Acoustics of Caves and Ritual Spaces
Recent interdisciplinary studies demonstrate that Paleolithic peoples were acutely aware of the acoustic properties of caves. At sites such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira, researchers have documented correlations between decorated chambers and zones of unusual resonance (Reznikoff & Dauvois, 1988). These locations amplify voices, echo percussion, and create acoustic effects that heighten sensory experience.
It is plausible that such spaces were intentionally selected for ritual activity. The interplay of flickering firelight, painted figures, and resonant sound transformed caves into immersive ritual environments. Chanting, drumming, and vocalizations could induce altered states of consciousness, reinforcing spiritual or communal experiences (Morley, 2013). These caves were not inert shelters; they were interactive theaters where sound and image combined to create meaning.
This perspective reframes cave art not only as visual expression but as an element in a broader multisensory cultural system. The cave was simultaneously a gallery and a performance hall, shaping the emergence of symbolic thought.
The Voice as the First Instrument
Before flutes and drums, the most versatile instrument was the human voice. The anatomical evidence of the hyoid bone, preserved in Neanderthal specimens such as Kebara 2, indicates the potential for complex vocalization (Arensburg et al., 1989). Coupled with respiratory control and changes in the vocal tract, this anatomy enabled a wide repertoire of sounds.
Vocalization likely served multiple adaptive purposes. Beyond language, early humans may have used chanting, pitch modulation, and call imitation in both functional and symbolic contexts. Parental vocalizations—lullabies, cooing, rhythmic humming—strengthened bonds between caregiver and child, a crucial mechanism for infant survival.
The human voice carried authority in ritual contexts, guided collective hunting, and mediated social negotiations. Its ability to move fluidly between practical and symbolic functions made it indispensable. Moreover, the ubiquity of song, chant, and prayer across cultures suggests deep evolutionary roots. In evolutionary anthropology, the voice represents the original interface between biology, society, and spirituality.
Reconstructing Prehistoric Soundscapes Today
Contemporary archaeology increasingly turns to sound reconstruction to recover this neglected dimension of prehistory. Experimental archaeology reproduces Paleolithic instruments and explores their acoustic capacities, while musicians perform within reconstructed cave environments to simulate ancient experiences. The resulting sounds are often haunting, emphasizing both continuity and distance between past and present.
Advances in digital technology allow even greater precision. Virtual reality and 3D acoustic modeling have been applied to caves to replicate resonance patterns and auditory experiences (Ellerbroek et al., 2019). Museums and heritage projects now incorporate these reconstructions into exhibitions, offering visitors immersive encounters with prehistoric soundscapes.
These reconstructions are not mere demonstrations but research tools. They prompt new questions: How did music support memory and oral tradition? In what ways did soundscapes influence symbolic thought and mythology? By situating sound at the center of inquiry, we restore a neglected dimension of human history and cognition.
Conclusion: Listening to the Past
The prehistoric soundscape reveals that auditory experience was not peripheral but foundational to human evolution. Sound facilitated survival, reinforced community, and mediated the sacred. From lullabies to cave chants, auditory practices bound individuals to each other and to their environments. In the absence of writing, sound was a repository of knowledge, identity, and meaning.
To reconstruct these soundscapes is to acknowledge that human history is not only visual but acoustic. By listening to the echoes of prehistory, we uncover the rhythms that shaped cognition and culture. The prehistoric world was alive with resonance and rhythm, reminding us that to be human has always meant to hear as well as to see.
Works Cited (APA 7th)
Arensburg, B., Tillier, A. M., Vandermeersch, B., Duday, H., Schepartz, L. A., & Rak, Y. (1989). A Middle Palaeolithic human hyoid bone. Nature, 338(6218), 758–760.
Conard, N. J., Malina, M., & Münzel, S. C. (2009). New flutes document the earliest musical tradition in southwestern Germany. Nature, 460(7256), 737–740.
Cross, I. (2001). Music, cognition, culture, and evolution. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 930(1), 28–42.
Dunbar, R. (2017). Human evolution: Our brains and behavior. Oxford University Press.
Ellerbroek, J., van Opstal, A. J., & Peters, R. J. (2019). Acoustic modeling of prehistoric caves: Reconstructing auditory environments. Journal of Archaeological Science, 105, 12–23.
Morley, I. (2013). The prehistory of music: Human evolution, archaeology, and the origins of musicality. Oxford University Press.
Quam, R., & Rak, Y. (2008). Auditory ossicles from southwest Asian Mousterian sites. Journal of Human Evolution, 54(3), 414–433.
Reznikoff, I., & Dauvois, M. (1988). La dimension sonore des grottes ornées. Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française, 85(8), 238–246.
Turk, I., Turk, M., & Otte, M. (1997). The Neanderthal flute from Divje Babe I cave (Slovenia). Antiquity, 71(272), 39–49.
Reconstructing the daily life of a Neanderthal is more than an exercise in imagination—it is an endeavor grounded in decades of archaeological research, paleoenvironmental reconstruction, and microscopic analyses of artifacts and remains. From isotope studies that reveal dietary preferences to wear patterns on tools that show how they were used, each piece of evidence helps build a clearer picture of what it meant to live in Ice Age Europe 50,000 years ago. This narrative draws on that science to bring a single day into focus, inviting the reader to step into a world both alien and deeply familiar.
A faint orange glow clings to the limestone overhang as embers from last night’s hearth breathe their last warmth into the cool morning air. You stir beneath a patchwork of hides—reindeer, bison, perhaps a scrap of cave bear—and push yourself up, feeling the stone’s imprint through the bedding of dried grasses while the air fills with smoke and damp earth. Around you, kin shift in their nests of skin and fur, and one rises, crouching at the fire pit to coax flame from coal with kindling and practiced breath.
The morning unfolds with deliberate purpose. Hands find flint scrapers laid out on a nearby stone slab, their edges worn from yesterday’s work. Hide-scraping begins almost without thought, the rhythm learned in youth—arms and shoulders moving in patterns repeated for generations. Birch bark, warmed and pressed, yields a tarry adhesive—dark, pungent, and sticky. This resin will secure a spear point to its shaft, a union of stone, wood, and fire that transforms raw material into hunting weapon (Kozowyk et al., 2017). The mingled scents of resin and char fill the air.
Food preparation follows. From a woven pouch comes a fistful of gathered seeds and nuts, their shells cracked with stone to reveal dense energy. A roasted root passes hand to hand, its sweetness recalling yesterday’s foraging. Far from the stereotype of a meat-only diet, the Neanderthal menu was broad. Dental calculus from El Sidrón and Spy Cave reveals starch grains from grasses and legumes, traces of mushrooms, and poplar bark rich in salicylic acid—a natural pain reliever (Henry et al., 2011; Weyrich et al., 2017). Some starches bear microscopic scarring from heat, evidence that fire served as both hearth and kitchen. Food is shared in a quiet circle, the act as much social glue as sustenance.
By midmorning, hunters prepare. Spears are hefted and their balance tested. These are not meant for distant throws; hafted stone points, shaped by the Levallois technique, are built for close work—drives and ambushes requiring the group to act as one (Soressi et al., 2013). Out on the plain, wind carries the scent of grazing animals: fallow deer, red deer, wild horse. A low whistle signals movement; feet find silent purchase on soil and stone. The strike is sudden, brutal, efficient. Blood steams in the cold air. Meat and bone are carried back, marrow-rich shafts treasured for the calories they hold (Bocherens, 2011).
In camp, tasks fall naturally into place. Children trail adults, imitating the motion of a flint strike or learning which roots are safe to dig. Injuries are tended; a man with a badly healed leg fracture sits by the fire, weaving cord from plant fibers. His survival is no accident—skeletal evidence from Neanderthal sites shows long-healed trauma that would have required sustained care (Spikins et al., 2019). Compassion is not exclusive to our species.
As the afternoon wanes, someone produces a lump of red ochre, grinding it to powder against a flat stone. The pigment stains hands and hide, perhaps used to tan leather or to mark skin and objects with meaning known only to the group (Roebroeks et al., 2012). Shells—some brought from far coasts—are drilled and strung. A child turns one in her fingers, watching light dance across its curved surface (Zilhão et al., 2010).
Dusk brings the scent of roasting meat, fat hissing into the coals. Conversation hums in low tones; the flicker of flames throws shifting patterns across the limestone walls. In some caves, such walls bear more than shadows—at La Pasiega, Maltravieso, and Ardales in Spain, red lines, dots, and hand stencils date back more than 66,000 years, painted when only Neanderthals lived here (Hoffmann et al., 2018). Whether the markings in this shelter are fresh or imagined, the impulse is the same: to leave a trace.
Night gathers. Bellies are full. Skins are drawn close against the chill. Beyond the fire’s reach, darkness swallows the world, and stars wheel over a landscape of ice, forest, and plain. Life here is not an abstract struggle—it is the scrape of hide under a stone blade, the warmth of shared food, the safety of sleeping bodies close together. It is ingenuity, endurance, and a web of care woven through kin, place, and time.
Stepping into such a day offers no caricature of “other” humanity—only a version of ourselves attuned to the texture of the world, to the immediacy of need, and to the enduring truth that survival depends as much on connection as on strength.
References
Bocherens, H. (2011). Diet and ecology of Neanderthals: Implications from C and N isotopes. Comptes Rendus Palevol, 10(4), 275–282. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crpv.2011.03.009
Henry, A. G., Brooks, A. S., & Piperno, D. R. (2011). Microfossils in calculus demonstrate consumption of plants and cooked foods in Neanderthal diets. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 108(2), 486–491. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1016868108
Hoffmann, D. L., Standish, C. D., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P. B., Milton, J. A., Zilhão, J., … & Pike, A. W. (2018). U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. Science, 359(6378), 912–915. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap7778
Kozowyk, P. R., Langejans, G. H. J., & Poulis, J. A. (2017). Laboratory replication of a Palaeolithic adhesive production method. Scientific Reports, 7, 8033. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-08106-8
Roebroeks, W., Sier, M. J., Nielsen, T. K., De Loecker, D., Pares, J. M., Arps, C. E. S., & Mücher, H. J. (2012). Use of red ochre by early Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(6), 1889–1894. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1112261109
Soressi, M., McPherron, S. P., Lenoir, M., Dogandžić, T., Goldberg, P., Jacobs, Z., … & Dibble, H. L. (2013). Neandertals made the first specialized bone tools in Europe. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(35), 14186–14190. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302730110
Spikins, P., Needham, A., Wright, B., Dytham, C., & Gatta, M. (2019). Living to fight another day: The ecological and evolutionary significance of Neanderthal healthcare. Quaternary Science Reviews, 217, 98–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2019.06.012
Weyrich, L. S., Duchene, S., Soubrier, J., Arriola, L., Llamas, B., Breen, J., … & Cooper, A. (2017). Neanderthal behaviour, diet, and disease inferred from ancient DNA in dental calculus. Nature, 544(7650), 357–361. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature21674
Zilhão, J., Angelucci, D. E., Badal-García, E., d’Errico, F., Daniel, F., Dayet, L., … & Villaverde, V. (2010). Symbolic use of marine shells and mineral pigments by Iberian Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(3), 1023–1028. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0914088107
World of Paleoanthropology 