This is how the last Neanderthals lived on the Iberian Peninsula

Neanderthals were the last humans on Earth who were not like us, and they remain a great enigma. Sometimes, it's even difficult to find the right words to describe what a Neanderthal is. For more than thirty years, at archaeological sites within the municipality of Alcoy, different teams have been trying to find answers to some of these questions: they study the tools they used and how they interacted with their environment to understand their mental structure, their cognitive abilities, their way of life, and their relationship with nature. "Our research project is profoundly transforming the traditional image of Neanderthals because we have been able to analyze, with an unprecedented level of detail, the behavior of the last Neanderthal populations before their disappearance," explains Cristo Hernández Gómez, who, along with Carolina Mallol Duque of the University of La Laguna, leads the project. Around time. Interdisciplinary investigations at the Neanderthal sites of Salt and Abric del PastorThe research won the IV Palarq National Prize for Archaeology and Paleontology, the highest private award in Spain dedicated to these disciplines. "The key to this advance lies in a multi-scale approach, which combines macroscopic analysis of the archaeological record with microscopic studies of sediments and investigations at the molecular scale. This approach allows us to separate human occupations that are very close in time, which until now appeared mixed together, and to reconstruct Neanderthal behavior on a temporal scale. "In just 3 centimeters of sediment, there can be millennia of history. We try to dissect and analyze what came first, what came later, and what corresponds to each occupation," he adds. The hearths are a window to the past

With this excavation at El Salto and Abric del Pastor, where the last Neanderthals lived before disappearing from the Iberian Peninsula, researchers have detected changes in mobility strategies, the use of raw materials, and the organization of domestic space. "The level of preservation is extraordinary," says Hernández. The researchers have been able to distinguish between heterogeneous groups that never interacted and that moved throughout the Serpis River basin, which crosses the regions of L'Alcoià, El Comtat, and La Safor, between 40,000 and 80,000 years ago. The lithic production provides many clues about what activities they carried out and where they carried them out, as well as what they left behind at their camps and what they took with them on their journeys. The campfires have provided a great deal of information about the Neanderthal diet.They fed mainly on adult horses, deer, and goats, and did not eat their young to ensure the survival of the species. They had a deep understanding of the environment and animal behavior. "The hearths are a window to the past, allowing us to understand how they organized themselves in their environment; they didn't always engage in the same activities. In some periods, tasks related to food and butchering predominated, while in others, craft-like activities are detected," explains Hernández. The hearths have also allowed researchers to define occupations, which tended to be brief, since the time elapsed between one hearth and another can be determined.

The data obtained by the team from the University of La Laguna show Neanderthals to be much more flexible and strategic than previously thought. "They did not exhibit homogeneous behavior for millennia, but rather adapted their activities according to the circumstances. They were creative, innovative, and resilient," states Hernández. The study of the tools demonstrates knowledge, planning, and learning that was passed down through generations.

The reason for their disappearance remains a great mystery. Although these populations were well adapted to the cold, environmental change could have affected food availability. "Research suggests that the disappearance of Neanderthals was gradual and had multiple causes. A key factor is demographic weakness: the groups were small, widely dispersed, and often isolated, which hindered reproduction and genetic continuity," explains Hernández. In some places, the Neanderthal population interbred with the Homo sapiens population. However, in this specific territory of the central Mediterranean, the disappearance of the Neanderthals occurred before the documented arrival of Homo sapiens.Homo sapiens, which did not appear in the area until approximately 38,000 years ago.