They may not have used clubs, but Neanderthals hunted seals too. Anthropologists have discovered ancient seal bones showing signs of butchery, as well as some dolphin remains, in two caves in Gibraltar.
© Clive Finlayson, Gibraltar MuseumThoracic vertebra of juvenile common dolphin from Vanguard cave
The discovery bolsters the image of Neanderthals as intelligent and adaptable hunters, rather than knuckle-dragging brutes, says Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar Museum.
Finlayson was part of an international team of anthropologists who discovered and analysed the marine mammal bones.
"Neanderthals could not have been that stupid and dumb," he says. "These people probably had a pretty good knowledge of the seasons and when to go hunting."
Finlayson and his colleague Yolanda Fernández-Jalvo, of Madrid's National Museum of Natural Sciences, discovered the bones in two cliff-base caves overlooking the Atlantic Ocean: Gorham's cave and Vanguard cave.
The sites, dating to around 40,000 years ago, also contain signs of hearths, tool-making and the remains of molluscs, boars and bears.
Comment: For those of you who would like to learn the secrets of Stonehenge, read Laura Knight-Jadczyk's The Secret History of the World.
This would probably be good advice for the above researchers, too.