Neanderthals and humans may have shared Levant culture

A new study based on fossils from Üçağızlı II Cave in present-day Türkiye suggests Neanderthals and modern humans may have practiced strikingly similar behaviors, including collecting Columbella rustica shells along the Mediterranean coast.

For tens of thousands of years. a single cave in what is now Türkiye kept the record of two different human groups moving through the same landscape—Neanderthals first. and then modern humans. The stone tools and hunting patterns left behind are close enough to force a painful question for anyone trying to draw sharp lines between “them” and “us.”.

Scientists have long known that ancient Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lived alongside each other for thousands of years. right up until Neanderthals went extinct some 40. 000 years ago. That overlap also shows up in bodies: most of the world’s population carries Neanderthal DNA to this day. But genetics can’t answer everything. The exact nature of interactions between the species has stayed elusive—until now.

The new study. published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. points to cultural overlap suggested by fossil evidence inside a cave in Türkiye called Üçağızlı II. Fossils indicate that Neanderthals occupied Üçağızlı II Cave from around 77,000 to 59,000 years ago. The cave was then occupied by modern humans until around 47,000 years ago.

The researchers do not explicitly claim the two groups overlapped in the cave at the same time. Still, the evidence suggests they shared previously unrecognized behavior patterns, even though the Neanderthal and H. sapiens remains were found at “different layers” in the cave—different timeframes in the same place.

In those layers, the similarities are hard to ignore. “They are associated with remarkably similar stone tool technologies, hunting strategies and overall ways of life,” says İsmail Baykara, the study’s lead author and a professor at Gaziantep University in Türkiye.

Baykara calls one detail a “biggest surprise.” Both Neanderthals and modern humans appear to have collected the shells of Columbella rustica—a kind of mollusk found along the Mediterranean coast—even though “many other shell species being available.” The possibility is that both groups used the shells for decorative purposes. but Baykara stresses that “more research is needed.”.

Until now, shell collecting of this kind was widely considered “exclusive to modern humans.” Baykara says the discovery “forces us to reconsider the nature of cultural boundaries and perhaps even cognitive capacities among different human groups in the Levant.”

Under the pressure of survival, the message in the fossils is blunt. The study’s findings suggest that “even under intense survival pressures, both groups placed high value on potentially symbolic behaviors,” Baykara says.

That isn’t a small adjustment to the story of who these humans were. It’s the sort of evidence that doesn’t just add a new data point—it changes the question. If Neanderthals and modern humans left behind such similar technologies. hunting strategies. and patterns of valued behavior in the same region. then cultural boundaries may have been less rigid than once assumed. even across groups separated by time.

Neanderthals Homo sapiens Üçağızlı II Cave Türkiye Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA Levant stone tool technologies hunting strategies Columbella rustica mollusk shells cultural practices human evolution