Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism In Crisis - Neanderthals With Different Cullinary Styles

Specialty of the house: Neanderthals at two nearby caves butchered the same prey in different ways, suggesting local food traditions

Cut-marks on a bone found at Amud.

Image by the authors, supplied by Anaëlle Jallon.

More embarrassment for creationists comes in the form of new evidence that Neanderthals were butchering and cooking meat in two caves in what is now Israel. Not only did this occur some 40,000 to 50,000 years before creationists believe the Earth was created, but it also shows that Neanderthal culture had diversified into distinct culinary traditions—even among populations inhabiting neighbouring areas.

The most damning evidence against creationist claims is, of course, the very existence of such archaeological remains. According to the biblical narrative of a global, genocidal flood just a few thousand years ago, this evidence simply should not exist. Such a cataclysm would have erased any trace of it—or at best buried it beneath thick layers of chaotic silt, jumbled together with fossils of plants and animals from distant land masses in no coherent stratigraphic order.

The evidence for Neanderthal cultural diversity comes from researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who studied remains in the nearby caves of Amud and Kebara, located just 70 km apart.

What they found was a marked difference in how the two Neanderthal groups butchered their prey, including whether they processed the carcasses at the kill site or transported them back to their caves for preparation. There also appear to be differences in how the meat was cooked.

The researchers’ findings are published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.

What information do you have on the Amud and Kebara caves and the Neanderthals who used them? The Amud and Kebara caves are two key archaeological sites located in present-day Israel that have yielded important evidence about Neanderthals in the Levant region during the Middle Palaeolithic. Both sites have contributed significantly to our understanding of Neanderthal anatomy, behaviour, and cultural practices, especially as they relate to interactions with early modern humans and regional adaptations.

Amud Cave

Location: Upper Galilee, northern Israel, in the Amud Gorge
Date Range: Occupied ~60,000 to 50,000 years ago

Key Findings:

Amud 1: A well-preserved Neanderthal male skeleton (discovered in 1961), notable for having a cranial capacity of ~1,740 cc, which is higher than the modern human average. This has been a point of interest in discussions of Neanderthal brain size and cognition.
Associated stone tools from the Mousterian industry, typical of Neanderthals.
Evidence of burial practices, possibly intentional, though this remains debated.
Animal bones with cut marks, indicating hunting and butchering behaviour.

Significance:

Amud represents the easternmost known range of Neanderthals and may reflect local adaptations.
Some have argued the remains show a mix of Neanderthal and modern human traits, fuelling discussions about gene flow or transitional populations in the Levant.

Kebara Cave

Location: Western slopes of Mount Carmel, near Zikhron Ya'akov
Date Range: Occupied ~60,000 years ago

Key Findings:

Kebara 2 ("Moshe"): One of the most complete Neanderthal skeletons ever found (discovered in 1983), though missing the skull. It includes the hyoid bone, which supports the tongue and is associated with speech, suggesting Neanderthals had the anatomy necessary for complex vocal communication.
Mousterian stone tools and evidence of hearths.
Detailed butchering marks on animal bones, indicative of organised meat processing and possibly food sharing.
Charred bones and cooking residues, pointing to controlled fire use and cooking.

Significance:

The presence of repeated hearths and consistent butchery patterns suggests deliberate habitation and culinary tradition.
Kebara’s inhabitants exhibited highly structured behaviour in food processing, possibly reflecting cultural continuity or group identity.

Broader Context and Comparison

Despite their proximity (~70 km apart), the recent study highlights marked differences in how Neanderthals at these two sites butchered and processed meat. This implies:

Regional cultural differences in Neanderthal groups, even within small geographic areas.
Evidence of culinary traditions that may have reflected social or environmental adaptations.
Challenges to the outdated view of Neanderthals as culturally stagnant or uniform.

These findings also support the idea that Neanderthals in the Levant were part of a complex human story involving interaction with anatomically modern humans who also passed through or settled in the region.

A press release from Frontiers also outlines the research and its wider significance.

Specialty of the house: Neanderthals at two nearby caves butchered the same prey in different ways, suggesting local food traditions
Neanderthals lived in the nearby caves of Amud and Kebara between 50 and 60,000 years ago, using the same tools and hunting the same prey. But scientists studying the cutmarks on the remains of their prey have found that the two groups seem to have butchered their food in visibly different ways, which can’t be explained by the skill of the butchers or the resources or tools used at each site. These differences could represent distinct cultural food practices, such as drying meat before butchering it.
Did Neanderthals have family recipes? A new study suggests that two groups of Neanderthals living in the caves of Amud and Kebara in northern Israel butchered their food in strikingly different ways, despite living close by and using similar tools and resources. Scientists think they might have been passing down different food preparation practices.

The subtle differences in cut-mark patterns between Amud and Kebara may reflect local traditions of animal carcass processing. Even though Neanderthals at these two sites shared similar living conditions and faced comparable challenges, they seem to have developed distinct butchery strategies, possibly passed down through social learning and cultural traditions. These two sites give us a unique opportunity to explore whether Neanderthal butchery techniques were standardized. If butchery techniques varied between sites or time periods, this would imply that factors such as cultural traditions, cooking preferences, or social organization influenced even subsistence-related activities such as butchering.

Anaëlle Jallon, lead author.
Institute of Archaeology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Jerusalem, Israel.

Written in the bones
Amud and Kebara are close to each other: only 70 kilometers apart. Neanderthals occupied both caves during the winters between 50 and 60,000 years ago, leaving behind burials, stone tools, hearths, and food remains. Both groups used the same flint tools and relied on the same prey for their diet — mostly gazelles and fallow deer. But there are some subtle differences between the two. The Neanderthals living at Kebara seem to have hunted more large prey than those at Amud, and they also seem to have carried more large kills home to butcher them in the cave rather than at the site of the kill.

At Amud, 40% of the animal bones are burned and most are fragmented. This could be caused by deliberate actions like cooking or by later accidental damage. At Kebara, 9% of the bones are burned, but less fragmented, and are thought to have been cooked. The bones at Amud also seem to have undergone less carnivore damage than those found at Kebara.

To investigate the differences between food preparation at Kebara and at Amud, the scientists selected a sample of cut-marked bones from contemporaneous layers at the two sites. They examined these macroscopically and microscopically, recording the cut-marks’ different characteristics. Similar patterns of cut-marks might suggest there were no differences in butchery practices, while different patterns might indicate distinct cultural traditions.

The cut-marks were clear and intact, largely unaffected by later damage caused by carnivores or the drying out of the bones. The profiles, angles, and surface widths of these cuts were similar, likely due to the two groups’ similar toolkits. However, the cut-marks found at Amud were more densely packed and less linear in shape than those at Kebara.

Cooking from scratch
The researchers considered several possible explanations for this pattern. It could have been driven by the demands of butchering different prey species or different types of bones — most of the bones at Amud, but not Kebara, are long bones — but when they only looked at the long bones of small ungulates found at both Amud and Kebara, the same differences showed up in the data. Experimental archaeology also suggests this pattern couldn’t be accounted for by less skilled butchers or by butchering more intensively to get as much food as possible. The different patterns of cut-marks are best explained by deliberate butchery choices made by each group.

Amud cave
Anaëlle Jallon.

One possible explanation is that the Neanderthals at Amud were treating meat differently before butchering it: possibly drying their meat or letting it decompose, like modern-day butchers hanging meat before cooking. Decaying meat is harder to process, which would account for the greater intensity and less linear form of the cut-marks. A second possibility is that different group organization — for example, the number of butchers who worked on a given kill — in the two communities of Neanderthals played a role.

However, more research will be needed to investigate these possibilities.

There are some limitations to consider. The bone fragments are sometimes too small to provide a complete picture of the butchery marks left on the carcass. While we have made efforts to correct for biases caused by fragmentation, this may limit our ability to fully interpret the data. Future studies, including more experimental work and comparative analyses, will be crucial for addressing these uncertainties — and maybe one day reconstructing Neanderthals’ recipes.

Anaëlle Jallon.

Macroscopic analysis of a bone on the lab bench.
Anaëlle Jallon.

Amud and Kebara caves (northern Israel) are two broadly contemporaneous Middle Paleolithic sites dated to ca. 70–50 Ka BP, both located in the Mediterranean realm of the southern Levant. Neanderthal occupations at these sites are represented by considerable amounts of lithic artifacts, combustion features and abundant faunal material as well as human remains. As similar mammalian taxonomic distributions were observed in these two Neanderthal cave sites, we explore the complexity and diversity of their animal resources processing techniques by comparing cut-marks characteristics and patterns. A total of 344 animal bone fragments bearing cut-marks were selected from specific stratigraphic contexts from both sites, and studied using macroscopic and microscopic techniques (i.e., Focus Variation microscopy) to quantify, characterize, and measure the cut-marks left on the bones. The observations were compared across the stratigraphic units and between the sites. Despite comparable taxonomic distributions, there are notable differences in the density and layout of cut-marks between the two caves. The micro-morphometric characteristics of these marks also highlight intra- and inter-site differences and similarities. This evidence might suggest distinctive butchering strategies between the Neanderthal populations in Amud and Kebara caves despite comparable occupation intensities, similar lithic technologies, and access to similar food resources. Such discrepancies could possibly reflect inter-group cultural differences related to carcass processing preferences, organization of tasks within the group, or socially transmitted traditions.

1 Introduction
Neanderthal diet was diverse and flexible, with the composition of faunal assemblages in sites occupied by Neanderthals across Eurasia shown to vary depending on the eco-geographical location of the sites. This suggests that Neanderthals were capable of adapting to different landscapes, environments, and local resources (e.g., Lorenzen et al., 2011; Blasco et al., 2013, 2016; Morin et al., 2015; Rivals et al., 2022; Romagnoli et al., 2022.1). Faunal studies and isotopic analyses demonstrated that the diet of Neanderthal was rich in animal proteins from large and small game, including the consumption of red and yellow bone marrow (Rendu, 2022.2; Rivals et al., 2022; Vettese et al., 2022.3 and references therein). Studies of the observed ratios of fallow deer to gazelle in Mediterranean Middle Paleolithic sites have reinforced the already suggested notion of a human bias in favor of gazelles in this region, potentially reflecting a specific human choice of prey (Orbach and Yeshurun, 2021 and references therein). Evidence suggests that the strategies for transport and butchering of animal carcasses adopted by Middle Paleolithic populations were dependent on many factors, including: the distance from residential camps to the hunting locations, the composition and size of the hunting party, the presence of scavenging carnivores near the kill-sites, the number of carcasses to be processed, as well as the size of the prey, and the differential utility of the various body parts (e.g., Binford, 1981; Bunn, 1986; O'Connell et al., 1988, 1990; Metcalfe and Barlow, 1992; Gifford-Gonzalez, 1998, 2018; Monahan, 1998.1; Faith et al., 2009; Speth, 2012; Schoville and Otárola-Castillo, 2014 and references therein). These factors lead to the hypothesis that large animals were more likely to be butchered at the kill-site, with a selection of body parts with a high yield of meat or fat, while smaller animals were brought whole to the occupation site, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the “schlepp effect” (Gifford-Gonzalez, 1998).

Levantine Late Middle Paleolithic (MP) sites, dated roughly between 75 and 45 Ka BP (corresponding to MIS 4 to MIS 3) are characterized mainly by shared similarities in settlement organization, the overall reduction of exploited territories in comparison to previous periods, as well as similar yet highly variable lithic technological practices (Hovers, 2009.1; Hovers and Belfer-Cohen, 2013.1; Abadi et al., 2020). Cave sites usually exhibit evidence for fire use and spatial differentiation of activities. Some of these spatial patterns, for instance the spatial coincidence of knapping activities with hearths, or the presence of specific areas designated for the discard of material and/or deposition of human remains, are common to several sites (Meignen et al., 2006). Reoccurring occupations maintaining consistent locations of these activities over time are also observed, mainly in cave sites (Hovers, 2001; Meignen et al., 2006). These various observations raise the question of knowledge-transmission and specific cultural practices within and between groups. These aspects of MP human behavior, most often discussed with regards to lithic assemblage characteristics, are here investigated from the perspective of animal resources processing. We compare butchery cut-mark patterns from two geographically close and broadly contemporaneous MP sites: Amud Cave and Kebara Cave.

Among the Levantine Middle Paleolithic sites, Amud Cave and Kebara Cave, situated some 70 km apart in Northern Israel (Figure 1), stand out for their richness in lithic artifacts, Neanderthal remains, and faunal remains, which attest to the occupation intensity at the sites. These two sites, located in the Mediterranean ecological zone of the southern Levant, are well-dated and have yielded broadly contemporaneous archeological layers within the time range of ca. 60-50 Ka BP (Valladas et al., 1987, 1999; Rink et al., 2001.1; Rebollo et al., 2011.1). Analyses of dental remains suggested for both sites at the corresponding stratigraphic units that occupations took place mainly between late fall to early spring (Speth and Clark, 2006.1; Speth and Tchernov, 2007; Rendu and Speth, 2019; Jallon et al., 2025), and that their occupants probably had access to a similar range of food resources. Similarities in the lithic assemblages, the nature of the deposits, and the modalities of occupation of Amud and Kebara caves have been extensively demonstrated by previous studies (Hovers, 1998.2, 2004, 2007.1; Albert et al., 2007.2; Shahack-Gross et al., 2008; Hovers et al., 2011.2; Meignen and Bar-Yosef, 2019.1 and references therein; see detailed site descriptions provided in the Section 2 below), making these two cave sites suitable for in-depth comparative analyses. Publications describing the bone assemblages from these two sites reveal that, notwithstanding slight differences, both reflect the Late Middle Paleolithic range of variability, focusing mainly on mountain gazelles, fallow deer, and other middle- to large-sized ungulates. Based on these similarities, we could therefore assume that similar butchering strategies were used at both sites. However, considerable differences were observed in the taphonomic characteristics of both faunal assemblages (Rabinovich and Hovers, 2004.1; Speth, 2019.2 and references therein). For instance, at Amud Cave, burnt remains appear to be particularly numerous and the bone material is highly fragmented, which could either reflect intentional human action (cooking, marrow extraction, or waste management), or be due to post-depositional processes such as trampling and repetitive sets of fireplaces throughout the occupations of the site (Rabinovich and Hovers, 2004.1; see also Mallol et al., 2013.2; Pérez et al., 2017; and Gallo et al., 2025.1 on bone post-depositional fragmentation and burning). Based on previous published work, the two sites also appear to differ in the frequency of butchery marks identified across the assemblages, with only 1%−3% of the remains studied from Amud bearing cut-marks (Rabinovich and Hovers, 2004.1), against 15% of the identified remains from Kebara (Speth, 2019.2). These differences in fragmentation and cut-mark frequency could reflect differing human behaviors at the two sites, but they could also be due to differing post-depositional processes, or to differences in zooarcheological analytical strategies and sample sizes. Because of the intense fragmentation, a standard approach to the study of cut-marks is particularly challenging for Amud, since cut-marks are most often observed on undetermined bone fragments. Therefore, in an effort to highlight the potential evidence of site-specific human behaviors and untangle them from taphonomic biases, the present study proposes to complement previous work on the faunal material from Amud and Kebara by focusing our analyses exclusively on the fragments bearing cut-marks and on their macro- and microscopic characteristics. We hypothesize that the absence of differences in cut-mark patterns among the two faunal assemblages may indicate that Neanderthal groups inhabiting the two sites used similar butchering strategies. On the contrary, if different cut-mark patterns can be observed within and between the two faunal assemblages, these differences might reflect differing behaviors. This approach aims to use cut-marks analyses to further explore the complexity and diversity of the animal resources processing techniques adopted at the two sites, despite the challenges inherent to the study of highly fragmented material.

Figure 1. Map of the Levant situating Amud and Kebara caves. Map made with the software Inkscape (version 1.0.2). Present-day extension of the Mediterranean ecological zone based on Asouti et al. (2015.1).

Pioneered by Lartet (1860) and Martin (1909), the study of cut-marks has been widely applied over the last 70 years to explore the traces resulting from various carcass processing strategies, as they can be an important source of evidence to reconstruct ancient butchery practices (e.g., White, 1952; Binford, 1981; Lyman, 1994, 1995; Blumenschine et al., 1994.1; Domínguez-Rodrigo and Pickering, 2003). Experimental and analytical work led to a better understanding of cut-marks macro- and micro-morphological characteristics, allowing for a better understanding of variations in frequency and morphology of butchery marks resulting from the tools used and the force applied during the butchering process (e.g., Walker, 1978; Potts and Shipman, 1981.2; Bello and Soligo, 2008.1; Bello et al., 2009.2; Bello, 2011.3; Greenfield et al., 2013.3; Galán and Domínguez-Rodrigo, 2014.1; Moretti et al., 2015.2). The frequency, location, and morphology of cut-marks have been suggested to differ depending on the specific butchery process (i.e., skinning, defleshing, disarticulation, fileting of meat; e.g., Binford, 1981; Vigne, 2006.2; Soulier and Morin, 2016.1; Soulier and Costamagno, 2017.1; Otárola-Castillo et al., 2018.1; Wallduck and Bello, 2018.2; Bello and Galway-Witham, 2019.3; Soulier, 2021.1). The emergence of new methodologies significantly improved our understanding of ancient butchery activities, providing high-precision microscopic tools for cut-mark identification and analysis (e.g., Bello and Soligo, 2008.1; Bello et al., 2009.2, 2013.4; Bello, 2011.3; Maté-González et al., 2017.2; Yravedra et al., 2017.3; Bello and Galway-Witham, 2019.3; Courtenay et al., 2019.4; Domínguez-Rodrigo, 2019.5). High-resolution cut-mark analyses therefore have the potential to provide additional insights into ancient human behaviors and how ancient groups exploited the faunal resources available to them. With this approach, we aim to evaluate the potential effects of resource selection (e.g., faunal composition, anatomical parts butchered), differential use of the cave space, and cultural behavior on site-specific butchery practices.

Our study focuses on the following objectives: firstly, we aim to assess whether cut-mark patterns differ diachronically or spatially within Amud cave, to evaluate whether animal carcasses might have been processed differently over the successive occupations represented in the sequence or within different areas of the cave. Secondly, we explore potential differences in cut-mark patterns in relation to prey-size within Kebara Cave, to evaluate whether specific types of prey could have been processed differently. Finally, we aim to investigate whether strategies of faunal resource exploitation appear similar across the two sites or differed in any way, and, if differences are identified, whether the patterns observed in relation to chronology, site area, or prey size could help explain these discrepancies. Furthermore, an effort is maintained throughout the study to assess the impact of potentially different post-depositional processes between the two sites on cut-mark preservation, in order to formulate our interpretations with caution. However, other factors, and in particular the palimpsest nature of the deposits considered here, limit our ability to confidently explore the full complexity of human behaviors associated with these butchery activities. As such, our objectives are approached as a means of generating informed hypotheses rather than definitive behavioral reconstructions.

Jallon, Anaëlle; Crété, Lucile; Bello, Silvia M.; Hovers, Erella; Rabinovich, Rivka
Cut from the same cloth? Comparing Neanderthal processing of faunal resources at Amud and Kebara caves (Israel) through cut-marks analyses
Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology 4 (2025) DOI: 10.3389/fearc.2025.1575572.

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Frontiers Media S.A.. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

The discoveries at Amud and Kebara caves present a profound challenge to the young Earth creationist view, which holds that the Earth and all life on it were created just a few thousand years ago, typically around 6,000 to 10,000 years ago. These sites, with their Neanderthal remains, stone tools, butchered animal bones, and evidence of fire use, date back over 50,000 years. This alone places them tens of thousands of years before the supposed creation date according to a literal reading of Genesis.

Moreover, the detailed and differing food preparation practices seen at Amud and Kebara suggest a cultural richness and continuity that is entirely at odds with the idea of a recent global flood having wiped out all human and animal life, as described in the biblical story of Noah. If such a cataclysm had occurred just a few thousand years ago, the carefully stratified layers of sediment, hearths, and fragile bone remains in these caves would have been obliterated or buried beneath chaotic flood deposits. Instead, what we see is clear, undisturbed archaeological evidence that Neanderthals lived, hunted, cooked, and developed regional traditions over extended periods—evidence that simply has no place in the creationist model, but fits seamlessly within the framework of evolutionary science and deep time.

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