Inside a Caveman's Barbeque

Aug. 27, 2007 — Either modern humans were in Israel over 200,000 years ago, or our now-extinct ancestors behaved a lot like us when they hunted and cooked, suggest artifacts and bones from a newly excavated cave.

Together, the remains paint a picture of relatively sophisticated hunting and food preparation at the site, called Misliya Cave, in Mount Carmel, Israel.

According to lead author Reuven Yeshurun, the cave exhibits "the full array of modern hunting behavior."

This behavior included "systematic hunting of large, prime-age animals, transport of the animals — or parts thereof — to the site, systematic butchery in order to extract meat and marrow, and roasting the meat," Yeshurun, a University of Haifa archaeologist, told Discovery News.

He and colleagues Guy Bar-Oz and Mina Weinstein-Evron found "thousands of flint flakes, blades and tools, many of which could have been used for butchering large carcasses."

See what a day in the life of a fossil hunter is like.
Get more Discovery News video here.

Yeshurun thinks the flint points could have been used as hafted spear points and thrust into animals, which included fallow deer, mountain gazelles, a very large type of cattle called aurochs, wild boars, red deer, goats, and a smattering of smaller game. The researchers even found 28 fragments of ostrich eggshells, perhaps indicating the cave dwellers ate huge ostrich eggs too.

These latest findings from the Misliya Cave project, sponsored by the Dan David Foundation, the Leaky Foundation and the CARE Archaeological Foundation, are outlined in a paper that has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Human Evolution.

For the study, the researchers used a stereoscopic microscope to search for telltale marks on the bones and tools. They discovered an abundance of butchery and hammerstone marks.

The marks, along with the method in which the bones were split and evidence of burning, suggest the animals were first dismembered, with larger pieces roasted over a fire. Long bones were then filleted and broken, probably to allow the diners to extract marrow. When the feast was over, cleaned bones appear to have been tossed into the fire.

Due to certain missing bones, the archaeologists theorize the hunters at times would butcher animals offsite for easier transport, taking only the meatiest parts back to the cave.

Since the vast majority of the prey were fairly large, adult animals, the scientists further speculate the density of the hominid population was low, since higher density groups tend to over-exploit resources. In such cases, the hunters might have been forced to seek faster, less meaty prey, like hares and partridges.

Because no human bones have yet been found in the cave, Yeshurun and his colleagues cannot identify which human species was responsible for the hunting. Given the early date, however, they suggest it was some sort of protohuman.

"Many studies show the possibility that behavioral modernity preceded anatomical modernity," he said.

University of Cape Town archaeologist Judith Sealy has also wrestled with this possibility.

"The issue is when the modern human capacity for advanced behavior first began," Sealy pointed out. "Advanced behavior being the kind of flexible, problem-solving behavior that enables us to think ahead and plan for the future, and the capacity to communicate with advanced language and symbolism."

But she and her colleagues, who found ancient abstract art in Africa's Blombos Cave, are inclined to believe that "behavioral modernity may in fact have coincided with anatomical modernity."

If Homo sapiens were in Israel 200,000 years ago, that could rewrite human history. Yeshurun and his team hope future research at Misliya may help to resolve this, and other unanswered, questions about the site.

Excavations at Misliya Cave

Walking With Cavemen

Big Game Hunters