Abri 122/1200, Vârghiș Gorges, Eastern Carpathians, Romania
One of creationism’s favourite tactics is to treat every apparent gap in the evidence as evidence of absence - although that never seems to apply to creationists' "God did it!" claims for which definitive evidence either for the god's existence or its actions are invariably absent. If archaeologists have not found something, creationists assume it never existed — or, more usually, that scientists cannot explain its absence without invoking the supernatural.
A study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science provides a neat illustration of what can really lie behind such gaps. In this case, the missing evidence was not missing at all. It consisted of thousands of small, unremarkable-looking fragments of animal bone that earlier archaeologists might easily have overlooked, discarded or left uncollected.
The study, led by Monica Mărgărit of Valahia University of Târgoviște, Romania, examined animal remains recovered from Abri 122/1200, a rock shelter in the Vârghiș Gorges of Romania’s Eastern Carpathians. The site contains an extensive Middle Palaeolithic stone-tool industry and abundant remains of animals, including bovids, goats, wolves and cave bears. Luminescence dating indicates that Middle Palaeolithic occupation extended across a long period, approximately from Marine Isotope Stage 7, about 230,000 years ago, into Marine Isotope Stage 3.
Among more than 10,000 bone fragments, the researchers identified 83 bearing combinations of impact damage, microscopic scratches, smoothing, polish and edge wear consistent with their having been used as tools. They distinguished these traces from damage caused by butchery, carnivore activity, sediment movement and other natural processes, using microscopic examination and comparisons with experimentally used bone fragments.
Some had apparently served as retouchers for shaping or sharpening stone tools. Others had been used to scrape or work softer substances such as hides or plant material, while still others had functioned as wedges, multipurpose implements or simple hammers. Most had not been laboriously carved into specialised shapes. A suitable fragment was selected, used for the task at hand and then discarded—an expedient but effective use of a readily available material.
That distinction is important. The discovery does not show that Neanderthals in Romania possessed an elaborate bone-working industry previously unknown to science. It shows something arguably more revealing about their everyday behaviour: they could recognise the useful properties of an ordinary fragment, adapt it to an immediate problem and employ materials other than stone as circumstances required. “Technologically flexible and resourceful” is therefore more accurate than the rather sensational claim that their technology was simply “more advanced”.
How Can Archaeologists Recognise an Expedient Bone Tool? A broken animal bone is not automatically a tool. Bones can be fractured, scratched, polished or crushed by many processes, including butchery, marrow extraction, carnivore gnawing, trampling, movement through sediment and weathering. Archaeologists must therefore distinguish evidence of deliberate use from damage produced before or after burial.No Neanderthal skeletal remains have yet been recovered from Abri 122/1200, so the attribution is indirect. It rests on the age of the deposits, their Middle Palaeolithic stone industry and their wider archaeological context. The researchers are now looking for more direct evidence, including ancient Neanderthal DNA preserved in the cave sediments. This qualification is acknowledged openly by the scientists, unlike creationism, in which uncertainty is habitually concealed beneath declarations of dogmatic certainty.
This study belongs to the field of traceology, or use-wear analysis. Researchers examine the position, orientation and microscopic structure of marks on an object to reconstruct how it may have been used.
Evidence of use
No single scratch or polished patch is normally decisive. Identification depends on combinations of features occurring in places where they would be expected on a working tool:
- Localised smoothing and rounding can develop where an edge or projection has repeatedly rubbed against another material.
- Microscopic striations may reveal the direction in which a tool was moved. Repeated scraping tends to produce organised wear rather than randomly orientated scratches.
- Polish can develop through prolonged contact with relatively soft materials, possibly including hides or plant fibres.
- Pits, grooves and small impact scars can indicate that a bone was used as a retoucher to shape or resharpen the edge of a stone tool.
- Crushing, flaking and battered ends may identify bones used as hammers, wedges or intermediate pieces through which force was transmitted.
These marks must be distinguished from other forms of damage. Carnivore teeth can leave pits, punctures, scores and ragged edges; trampling can produce irregular scratches; roots can etch branching patterns into a surface; and movement through sediment can abrade an entire bone. Butchery and marrow extraction also produce characteristic cut marks, impact notches and fracture patterns. Those marks demonstrate human activity, but do not necessarily show that the bone was subsequently used as a tool.
Researchers compare archaeological specimens with experimental reference collections. Modern fragments of similar bone are used for scraping, rubbing, hammering, wedging or working stone. The resulting wear is then examined microscopically and compared with that preserved on the ancient specimens. Archaeological context, fracture history and the distribution of wear across each fragment provide additional evidence.
Even then, conclusions are expressed cautiously. Use-wear may show that a bone contacted a hard or soft material and indicate the kind of movement involved, but it cannot always identify the precise task or material with certainty.
Expedient and formally manufactured tools
A formal bone tool is deliberately manufactured. Its maker selects a suitable bone, produces a blank and modifies it by cutting, scraping, grinding or polishing. The finished object may have a regular shape intended for repeated or specialised use.
An expedient bone tool requires much less preparation. Its user recognises that an existing fragment already has a suitable edge, point, weight or shape, perhaps makes a minor adjustment, uses it for an immediate task and then discards it.
This does not mean that an expedient tool was accidental or that its user lacked the ability to manufacture something more elaborate. It represents a practical decision: there is little benefit in spending time making a specialised implement when a conveniently shaped piece of bone can perform the required task immediately.
Most of the specimens from Abri 122/1200 appear to belong to this expedient category. They were not extensively shaped, but their wear indicates that Neanderthals selected and used them as retouchers, scrapers, wedges, multipurpose implements or percussive tools. Their significance lies in the flexibility with which available materials were exploited, not in elaborate craftsmanship.
How archaeological gaps are created
Expedient tools present a particular problem because they can look like ordinary fragments of food waste. Earlier excavations often concentrated on complete, identifiable or visually impressive bones. Small fragments might be placed in storage without detailed examination—or not collected at all.
Consequently, an apparent absence of bone technology can reflect collection practices, preservation and the questions earlier researchers were asking rather than the behaviour of the people who occupied a site.
The Romanian evidence illustrates why gaps in the archaeological record should not be treated as proof that something never existed. Sometimes the missing evidence is already present, awaiting the methods and research questions needed to recognise it.
The Romanian report in Gândul therefore describes more than another addition to the Neanderthal toolkit. The research demonstrates how apparent gaps in the archaeological record can be created by preservation, sampling and the questions researchers previously thought to ask. When those methods and questions improve, the gaps become smaller—not because scientists have invented missing evidence, but because they have learnt how to recognise evidence that was hiding in plain sight.
Auto-translated from Romanian:
Important discovery at a site in Romania. Neanderthals had more advanced technology than previously thought
Archaeologists have made an extremely important discovery right on Romanian territory. Specifically, in the site called Abri 122/1200, a cave in the Vârghiș Gorges occupied in the Middle Paleolithic, approximately 230,000 to 60,000 years ago, specialists have identified things that change what was known so far about the Neanderthals who lived on Romanian territory.
Researchers have identified, in bone fragments, the first evidence that they used bone tools for activities such as scraping, sharpening, or splitting.
The new study, led by Monica Mărgărit from the University of Târgoviște, was published in the Journal of Quaternary Science and focused on animal remains intentionally modified by humans. The researchers tried to determine whether the animal bones were simply remains from food consumption or whether, given the observed modifications, they were also transformed into tools for various activities, such as leather processing.
The context is particularly interesting because the Abri 122/1200 site preserves an important lithic industry and a large amount of faunal remains. Previous research has already identified bones from large herbivores, such as representatives of the bovid family, from the genera Bos and Bison, goats, but also the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus).
The bones show a high degree of fragmentation, compatible with the activities of cutting and exploiting the carcasses. During previous archaeological campaigns, fragments of long bones were discovered that appear to have been obtained by striking, most likely in the process of extracting the marrow. Some of the fragments also showed features compatible with their use as tools, geopop.it shows.
Important discovery on Romanian territory
The new study focuses on this aspect: the animal bones were not necessarily just food scraps. Traceological analyses showed that they were intentionally exploited. Some fragments could be selected and modified for use as tools, which demonstrates that Neanderthal technology was not limited to stone.
Although these fragments were not frequently processed or adapted for a very precise purpose, their shapes and characteristics appear to have been considered useful for carrying out certain activities.
The significance of the discovery goes beyond a single artifact. The intentional use of bones demonstrates a wider range of raw materials exploited by Neanderthals and suggests that, in addition to producing stone tools, these communities may have systematically used materials obtained from animal carcasses.
Abri 122/1200 is also an important site for understanding the presence of Neanderthals in the Carpathian region. The most recent research on the chronology of the site indicates that the archaeological levels with Middle Paleolithic industry could be up to about 230,000 years old.
The discoveries at Abri 122/1200 thus contribute to shaping an increasingly complex picture of Neanderthal technology: a system in which stone represented a fundamental raw material, but in which the bones of hunted and consumed animals could also become useful materials for carrying out technological activities.
Publication:
The significance of these finds does not lie in the discovery of some spectacularly sophisticated Neanderthal invention. It lies in the evidence of adaptability preserved on apparently insignificant fragments of bone. The occupants of Abri 122/1200 recognised useful shapes and properties in the remains of the animals they exploited, selected suitable pieces for particular jobs and discarded them when those jobs were finished. This was practical problem-solving—the ability to use different materials flexibly rather than depend upon a rigid repertoire of stone implements.
The study also illustrates why creationist arguments based upon gaps in the evidence are so fundamentally dishonest. The apparent absence of Neanderthal bone tools from the Carpathian region did not mean that no such tools had existed. Many were too small and insufficiently modified to attract the attention of earlier excavators. Once researchers asked a more precise question, examined every fragment microscopically and compared its wear with experimentally produced marks, some of the supposedly missing evidence emerged from material that had been present all along.
Nor can the wider archaeological context be reconciled with a young Earth or a recent global flood. Abri 122/1200 preserves Middle Palaeolithic occupations extending through a substantial portion of the Pleistocene, within an independently dated sequence spanning tens of thousands of years. Its stone artefacts, butchered animal remains and expedient bone tools record repeated human activity long before creationists believe their god created the Universe, let alone before their mythical Flood supposedly destroyed the archaeological landscape. The absence of evidence does nothing for creationism; the presence of evidence utterly refutes it.
The researchers are also explicit about the limits of their conclusions. No identifiable Neanderthal remains have yet been found at the site, so the attribution rests upon its chronology, Middle Palaeolithic stone industry and wider European context. Instead of concealing that uncertainty, the team is looking for additional evidence, including ancient DNA in the sediments. That is how science works: conclusions are proportioned to the available evidence and remain open to refinement when new evidence appears.
Creationism predicted none of these discoveries, supplied none of the methods used to recognise them and offers no coherent explanation for their age or archaeological setting. Its only contribution is to rename Neanderthals as descendants of Adam or Noah and dismiss the dating, stratigraphy, genetics and comparative anatomy that show otherwise. Far from exposing a weakness in evolutionary science, the former blank on the Carpathian map demonstrates how science closes gaps, while creationism survives by pretending that every gap must remain permanent.
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