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Cave debitage 1

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One of the weirder things I have been doing over the past two years is trying to recreate a Middle Paleolithic (Mousterian/Levallois) cave debitage pile. Here is one picture of my debitage pile, it has bones (lamb, deer, bear, caribou and fox) wood, leather, the bulk is lithic waste material with a few failed projects. Close up picture of one end of the lamb bone, if you look closely you can see it is raw bone and still has some fat on it. This bone, along with all the others were worked with only stone tools. I tried to keep all the debitage in the pile one hundred percent "primitive" or natural. Picture two of a lamb bone, in this picture you can see just how overwelling the lithic waste material truly is, but a reading with a keen eye will also have noticed the failed hand axe that sits right in the forefront If the image, they would also have noticed the piece of brich tree (that was part of my brich tar project late 2020) or the deer m...
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Neanderthals used Bear bone retouchers

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Neanderthals used cave bear bones to retouch their stone tools, it is also possible they were retouching their stone tools with the bones of the bear they were butchering. Image Credit: 10.1371/journal.pone.0230642.g004 Fig 1 shows the wear on the bear bones that came into contact with neanderthal stone tools. Cave bear bone Retouchers From Scladina Cave, Neanderthal use of bear bones for retouchers is very rare however at Scladina cave (Belgium) there were 26 retouchers found with 6 being made from cave bear bones four from a femur and two from two tibiae. Flint splinters, still embedded in grooves, can be used to identify their function as knapping tools. These cave bear bones show modifications in the form of cut marks, scraping marks, impact notches and typical fractures of percussions on green bone. Image Source: Zátonyi Sándo The fossilized body of a cave bear that died during hibernation. This Suggests that the neanderthals who used/made them were us...
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Neanderthal child burial

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This two-three week old baby neanderthal was found in Mezmaiskaya cave (Russia) is the youngest neanderthal ever found. Dating to around 80,000 to 40,000 years old this tiny body was not found in a burial pit however, there is a lot of evidence that suggests this baby was buried intentionally by either his mother or clan.  He/she was found on his side in "a classic baby burial fashion" with his hands tucked under his head furthermore, considering how the fragile bones are they are in incredible condition and show no signs of being scavenged by rodents or other carnivores/scavengers. I can't imagine how the mother, father or clan felt when they lost this precious resource but at least we know they cared. Sources: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270883944_Mezmaiskaya_Cave_A_Neanderthal_Occupation_in_the_Northern_Caucasus https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=mezmaiskaya+cave+neanderthal&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart#d=gs_...
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