Neanderthal bone smoothers (lissoirs)
Alisadores de hueso (lissoirs) neandertales
- Date
- c. 51 ka · confidence medium
- Place
- Pech-de-l'Azé I, Carsac-Aillac, Dordogne, France
- Credited to
- Neanderthals (Mousterian)
- Field
- Tools
What was discovered
Ribs of bovids and cervids, polished and rounded at one end and used to rub and soften hides, appear at Mousterian sites in the Dordogne some 50,000 years ago. They are among the earliest specialised bone tools, made by Neanderthals before Homo sapiens reached the region.
Soressi and colleagues (2013) dated them to about 51-41 ka at Pech-de-l'Azé I and Abri Peyrony; they may predate the arrival of sapiens in western Europe, though the fine chronology of that contact is debated.
What it led to
- more efficient hide-working for clothing and shelter in glacial cold
- a bone-tool tradition continued by Aurignacian modern humans
- support for the case that Neanderthals had their own technical capacity rather than imitating others