A well-preserved home
The Abric Romaní is a large rock shelter in Catalonia, Spain, situated on a travertine cliff about 60 meters above the Anoia river. For tens of thousands of years, from roughly 70,000 to 40,000 years ago, Neanderthal groups repeatedly occupied this site. This location is exceptional is its detailed record of their domestic lives. The site consists of a sedimentary deposit nearly 20 meters thick, containing at least 27 distinct archaeological layers. These "living floors" are separated by sterile layers of travertine tufa, which allows for a clear vertical separation of different occupation periods.
Excavations have uncovered large surfaces—over 200 square meters for some levels—revealing how Neanderthals organized their living spaces. The evidence points to a structured division of their camps. The area closest to the rock shelter wall, marked by many small fireplaces, appears to have been a designated sleeping area. Larger domestic areas in the central part of the shelter were used for activities like cooking food and producing stone tools. The outermost part of the campsite was consistently used as a waste dump. This spatial organization, with specific zones for different activities, has been meticulously reconstructed by archaeologists.
Level Q, dated to approximately 60,000 years ago, is particularly full of artifacts. Excavations of this level alone have yielded more than 12,000 items, including about 5,000 stone tools and 7,000 animal remains. The bones belong to hunted animals like horses, deer, and goats. The stone tools were crafted from flint, quartz, and limestone.
Fire, wood, and daily life
The Abric Romaní contains one of the most extensive records of Neanderthal fire use in the world, with more than 200 hearths identified throughout the sequence. These hearths were central to the spatial organization of the camp, with most activities happening around them. The fuel for these fires was primarily red pine (Pinus sylvestris). In one level, a concave hole measuring 40x30x10 cm was found near several hearths, which archaeologists theorize might have been a container for heating water.
Perhaps the most unique feature of Abric Romaní is the preservation of wooden objects. While wood itself decays, the calcium-rich water at the site created travertine casts, preserving the negative imprints of wooden artifacts. Over 120 such imprints have been found. These include rounded sticks, branches with diameters up to 3 cm, and objects that show clear signs of intentional shaping, like a tool with a handle and a broad, flat blade. These finds show Neanderthal woodworking technology, an part of their lives that is usually lost from the archaeological record. The oldest of these wooden remains date back 70,000 years.
Despite the wealth of information on their daily activities, no Neanderthal skeletal remains have ever been found at the site. Researchers believe this is because they did not bury their dead in this type of campsite.