How Did Hominins Adapt to Ice Age Europe without Fire?

Harold L Dibble,Aylar Abodolahzadeh,Vera Aldeias,Dennis M Sandgathe,Shannon P Mcpherron,Paul Goldberg

doi:10.1086/692628

Abstract

Analyses of archaeological material recovered from several Middle Paleolithic sites in southwest France have provided strong corroborating data on Neanderthal use of fire. Both direct and indirect data show that Neanderthals in this region were frequently and/or intensively using fire during warmer periods, but such evidence declines significantly in occupations that took place during colder periods. One possible explanation for this pattern is that it reflects the inability of Western European Neanderthals to make fire, simply because natural sources of fire occur much more frequently during warmer climatic periods. Regardless of the explanation, the long periods of diminished evidence of fire shows that, unlike modern humans, these hominins were not obligate fire users, and this fact in itself raises important questions of how they adapted, physiologically and/or technologically, to the generally harsh glacial conditions of the middle latitude of Europe and to reduced energy returns typical of raw food....

Highlights

Analyses of archaeological material recovered from several Middle Paleolithic sites in southwest France have provided strong corroborating data on Neanderthal use of fire
Regardless of the reason for the long hiatus, if fire were not being used during long periods of occupation at these sites, this raises important questions regarding the role of fire in the overall
As the evidence from sites like Roc de Marsal and Pech de l’Azé IV (Pech IV) clearly indicates that meat was not always cooked, it seems likely that consumption of raw meat was relatively common during the Lower Paleolithic and during at least certain periods in the Middle Paleolithic

Summary

Introduction

The upper Mousterian layers (Layers 4 through 2 at Roc de Marsal and Layers 5 and 4 at Pech IV) contain no identifiable fire features, including no concentrations of charcoal or ash and limited quantities of burned bone or flint. Both Pech IV and Roc de Marsal have excellent preservation, and the correlation is high between the presence or absence of direct evidence for fire (i.e., ash, charcoal or burned bone, rubefied sediments) and the indirect evidence of burned artifacts (see Aldeias 2017).

Results

Conclusion