A new research project on Neanderthal hunter-gatherers

22 juli 2004

From about 500,000 BP onwards, Europe saw a continuous occupation by occasionally small and rather isolated groups of cold-adapted Neanderthals, living under severe climatic stress. Recent archaeological studies have shown that these hominins, in contrast to previous opinions, were capable hunters of a wide variety of large game. The NWO-Geesteswetenschappen (sic) project "Thoughtful Hunters? The Archaeology of Neanderthal Communication and Cognition" (2004-2007, at the Archaeology Department of Leiden University) focuses on the behavioural and cognitive - next to cultural and technological - presuppositions of Neanderthal hunting. A key question is whether the 'quality education' needed to become an expert hunter was possible without the transcendence of the here and now and a release from proximity by symbolic and syntactical language? For more information, see http://www .archeologie.leidenuniv.nl/index.php3?m=46&c=116.