Edge scraper, a tool for working with skins, found in Veldwezelt-Hezerwater and between 33,000 and 250,000 years old (2 cm long) | Tongeren, Gallo-Roman Museum, V05/12
Neanderthals in the Valley of the Meuse
The Earliest Traces of Human Habitation
For thousands of years we, modern humans or homo sapiens, were not the only human species on earth. We shared the world with the Neanderthals. In Veldwezelt in Limburg, on the bank of the Hezewater, Neanderthals built temporary shelters. They are among the oldest discovered human settlements in the region now called Flanders.
The Neanderthals evolved some 400,000 years ago from another human species, homo heidelbergensisso-called after the German city of Heidelberg, where the first discovery of this species was made. . The habitat of the Neanderthals extended across Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. They were very similar in appearance to modern man. However, there were differences. For example, they had rather heavier arched eyebrows and usually a somewhat greater skull capacity. They were very muscular and on average 1.65 m tall.
Neanderthals were hunters and led a nomadic existence. In Veldwezelt archaeologists uncovered four temporary camps and a spot used to extract flint. The traces are between 133,000 and 58,000 years old. In and around the camp sites archaeologists also found 2,500 tools, made of local flint. In addition they found bones and teeth of prehistoric animals, such as the mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros and the wild horse.
Tongeren, Gallo-Roman Museum, GRM 19169
Flint hand axe, probably made by a Heidelberg man (10.3 cm long, 5.6 cm wide, 2.6 cm thick).
The Earliest Traces of Human Habitation
Both the Neanderthals and modern humans are descended from an older human species, homo heidelbergensis. In Kesselt (near Veldwezelt in Limburg) archaeologists found a flint hand axe and a few other tools which were probably made between 400,000 and 500,000 years ago by this common ancestor.
The Neanderthals left multiple traces in this region. They also made flint tools. The locations where these were found are concentrated around the lower reaches of the Meuse in present-day Limburg. That is no coincidence: a lot of flint occurs naturally in that area. No bones or other fossil remains of Heidelberg men or Neanderthals were found. However, through the shape and age of the tools, archaeologists are agreed that they were made by these human species. They were able to deduce the dating from the way the tools were made and the geological layer in which they were found.
Approximately 38,000 years ago the Neanderthals vanished for good from the face of the earth. In that period increasing numbers of animal species, which they hunted, died out. Still, the Neanderthal survives in a modest way: research has shown that modern humans share between 1% and 4% of their DNA with Neanderthals. During their contacts, therefore, between 250,000 and 33,000 years ago, there was interbreeding between homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
Focal points
Tongeren, Gallo-Roman Museum, HW 272
A mammoth tooth, found in a Neanderthal camp in Veldwezelt.
Landscape and Climate Change in Prehistory
The climate in which the Neanderthals lived, was largely cold to very cold. Between the so-called Ice Agesan ice age is a period in which the climate on earth was much colder than today and large parts of the planet were covered in ice. there were sometimes periods with a more or less moderate or warm climate. Those changes had a great impact on the landscape, plants and animals. This means that Neanderthals needed to adapt well to differing living conditions.
During the Ice Ages the level of the North Sea was considerably lower then and the Channel had not yet formed. Instead a lush valley extended from the continent to present-day Great Britain. The valley was criss-crossed by rivers, Neanderthals hunted there too. That is shown by the discovery of a skull fragment and a large number of tools fifteen kilometres off the coast of present-day Zeeland (The Netherlands).
In those cold periods few trees grew in the Northern hemisphere, but there were tall grasses and herbs. Reindeer, wild horses, woolly rhinoceroses, bison and mammoths grazed. For Neanderthals those animals were the main food source. They followed the migration of the herds. When the temperature rose in the course of the centuries, the landscape gradually changed. That happened, for example, after the last Ice Age, some 12,000 years ago. Extensive coniferous forests appeared. The first modern humans hunted red deer, aurochs, roe deer and wild boar.
Wikimedia Commons
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal man in the Gallo-Roman Museum in Tongeren.
Early Technology
The main traces of prehistoric human beings are the stone tools that they made. That is because stone does not decay, unlike human or animal bones, or other organic materials such as wood. Flint was often the material of choice. That stone had the advantage of being very hard, but also easy to work with. By carefully knapping off flakes with another stone, razor-sharp cutting edges were created.
A very common tool of homo heidelbergensis was the hand axe. Hand axes had a teardrop shape and were worked front and back, creating a sharp edge. They were made so as to sit comfortably in the hand. They were often used for skinning and butchering prey animals. But they were also handy for working wood.
In the course of prehistory, man made increasingly complex tools, which required more processing skills. On the basis of the technique used archaeologists can estimate quite precisely how old an object is. The Neanderthals developed the complex Levallois techniquenamed after the place near Paris where archaeologists first identified the technique. . With this technique a core stone was first prepared, after which flakes were knapped off with a few well-aimed blows. The flint chippings had very sharp edges and could be further worked into knives, scraperstools for scraping hides clean, but also for shaving wood, antlers and bone. or spear heads. Thanks to this the Neanderthals were able to produce lighter tools than the heavy hand axes used by homo heidelbergensis.
Discover more on this topic
Het verhaal van Vlaanderen – De Prehistorie
Bron: VRT archief, De Mensen – 1 jan 2023
Het verhaal van Vlaanderen – De Prehistorie
Bron: VRT archief, De Mensen – 1 jan 2023
Overleven – De nieuwe Neanderthaler
Rechten: VRT-archief, Canvas en de Vlaamse Gemeenschap – 26 okt 2003
Het verhaal van Vlaanderen – De Prehistorie
Bron: VRT archief, De Mensen – 1 jan 2023
Journaal
Bron: VRT archief, Max Planck instituut – 3 maa 221
Overleven – De nieuwe Neanderthaler
Bron: VRT-archief, Canvas en de Vlaamse Gemeenschap – 26 okt 2003
Non-fiction
Verdwenen wereld in de Noordzee
Sidestone Press, 2021
Het halssieraad van de Neanderthaler: op zoek naar de eerste denkers
Wereldbibliotheek, 2004
Neanderthalers in Europa
Davidsfonds, 2003
Hoe we mensen werden: een geheel nieuwe kijk op de oorsprong van de mensheid
Spectrum, 2020
Mijn Europese familie: de laatste 54.000 jaar
Athenaeum-Polak & Van Gennep, 2017
De langste reis. Op zoek naar het ontstaan van de mens
Davidsfonds, 2012
Cool! Neanderthalers in het Maasdal
Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht, 2014
Wie vermoordde de neanderthaler?
EPO, 2020
De eerste stappen: hoe rechtop lopen ons mens maakte
Harper-Collins, 2020
De eerste mensen in de Lage Landen
Van Gorcum, 2022
De oudste ronde van Vlaanderen. Een archeologisch parcours
Davidsfonds Uitgeverij, 2011
Mevrouw Sapiens: de vrouw in de prehistorie
Noordboek, 2022
Toen wij nog Neanderthalers waren en andere verhalen over de menselijke evolutie
Karakter, 2020
Ons verste verleden: historisch denken over de prehistorische mens in de oude wereld
Universitaire Pers Leuven, 2020
Overlevers. Hoe het komt dat wij de enige mensachtige op aarde zijn
Nieuw Amsterdam, 2012
Fiction
Vuurmeisje
Davidsfonds, 2018. (12+)
De laatste neanderthaler
Cargo, 2017
Mijn familie: een reis door de tijd
De Eenhoorn, 2009. (3+)
Het lied van de vreemdeling
Leopold, 2020. (12+)
Onder de golven: het verhaal van Doggerland
Fontaine, 2021
Feun en de vloek van de sjamaan
Manteau, 2005. (en 3 andere delen van de Feun-reeks)
Nikki en de Neanderthalers
Kluitman, 2018. (9+)
Neanderthaler
Uitgeverij Daedalus, 2015. (driedelige stripreeks)
Nu kijken
‘Van vuursteenknol tot vuistbijl’
Minicollege over Doggerland, de verdwenen wereld in de Noordzee
‘Hoe de Neanderthaler op mysterieuze wijze van de aarde verdween’
uit het wetenschappelijke programma ‘De kennis van nu’ (NTR)