Better Homes and Hearths, Neandertal-Style

摘要

To a passerby, the excited chatter of 100 researchers visiting the Abric Romani rock shelter must have sounded more like a school trip than a serious scientific expedition. Grown men and women bounded like children up and down the metal steps leading into this huge cliff-side cavern overlooking the village of Capellades, 50 kilometers west of Barcelona. Snapping photos, they darted over wooden planks between blackened hearths looking so fresh that fires might have burned there just yesterday. The hearths had indeed been freshly excavated by archaeologists just 2 weeks before. But the hearthmakers were Neandertals, who visited the cave about 50,000 years ago.