Handaxe Design Traditions Reveal Cultural Complexity among Neanderthals

A new study has found that the different Neanderthal groups in Europe made different shapes of handaxes, showing that they had distinct tool-making styles.

The study was conducted by researchers at University of Southampton. Dr Karen Ruebens from the Centre for the Archaeology of Human Origins (CAHO) looked at designs of over 1,300 stone tools from 80 sites in Germany, Belgium, France and Netherlands.

Her study showed that there were two hand-axe traditions during the Neanderthals' time; one handaxe tradition included the regions that are now south-western France and Britain while the other included Germany and East Europe.

According to Ruebens, Neanderthals living in the West made handaxes that had certain symmetry and were triangle or heart-shaped tools. But, Neanderthals living in the East made asymmetrical, bifacial knives. The study also showed that Neanderthals living in the regions that are now France and Belgium had tools that had designs borrowed from East and West Europe.

 "The transition zone in Belgium and Northern France indicates contact between the different groups of Neanderthals, which is generally difficult to identify but has been much talked about, especially in relation to later contacts with groups of modern humans. This area can be seen as a melting pot of ideas where mobile groups of Neanderthals, both from the eastern and western tradition would pass by - influencing each other's designs and leaving behind a more varied record of bifacial tools," said Ruebens.

Different hand-axe designs show that the Neanderthals invested time and effort to master the art of tool-making and even passed the information through many generations, according to the study.

"Making stone tools was not merely an opportunistic task. A lot of time, effort and tradition were invested and these tools carry a certain amount of socio-cultural information, which does not contribute directly to their function," Ruebens said in a news release.

The study is published in the Journal of Human Evolution.            

Neanderthals diverged from the primate line that gave rise to modern humans about 200,000 years ago. This group then moved to Eurasia and completely disappeared from the world about 30,000 years back. Other studies have shown that Neanderthals might have lived near the Arctic Circle around 31,000 to 34,000 years ago.