Clams, Carbs, and Neanderthal Cave Paintings

When you think of Neanderthals, you likely picture hairy, half-naked brutes running through the forest with crude spears. Somehow, despite the discoveries about their complex societies and rituals, we still tend to think of our forebears as not quite fully human.

Photo S. ENTRESSANGLE / E. DAYNES/SCIENCE SOURCE

Recent examination of Neanderthal artifacts discovered in an Italian cave adds depth to the picture. Turns out, some Neanderthals were clam divers. Researchers found clamshells that were shaped into cutting and scraping tools. Some of those shells were weathered and dull from tumbling in the surf after the animals died. But others were smooth and shiny, indicating they were harvested while the clams were still alive.

The people who harvested those clams needed to know how to find clams buried on the seafloor and had to dive to retrieve them. In other words, they had to observe the clams’ behavior and then leave their own comfort zone to gather them from underwater.

That may not sound particularly “Neanderthal” to people who believe that these ancient people were sub-human, but it lines up with the biblical teaching that we were created fully human from the beginning. Not only did early humans dive, but another new discovery reveals they cooked vegetables too. A cave in South Africa yielded remains of cooked Hypoxis rhizomes—similar to a type of potato—that represent the earliest direct evidence of cooking, from the Middle Stone Age supposedly 170,000 years ago. Turns out Neanderthals enjoyed carbs too.

Ancient humans didn’t limit themselves to the culinary arts. A cave painting recently discovered in Indonesia depicts the carnivorous hunters we’ve come to expect. The scene is perhaps the earliest known example of storytelling, at a supposed age of 43,900 years. That’s more than twice as old as the calculated age for the famous cave paintings in Lascaux, France, which until now were thought to be the oldest cave paintings discovered.

Because technology has increased so much since Neanderthals and other ancient people walked the earth, we tend to discount their intelligence. But Neanderthals were intelligent human beings who lived after the flood only a few thousand years ago.

Humans have always been innovators, cooks, and artists—a biblical fact reinforced by every new discovery.