Late Neandertals and the intentional removal of feathers as evidenced from bird bone taphonomy at Fumane Cave 44 ky B.P., Italy

The debate over the cognitive and behavioral capabilities of Neandertals, especially in the period around the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe, is extensive and often based on archaeological records from a handful of pivotal sites. One of these, the Grotte du Renne site at Arcy-sur-Cure, France, provides a range of ornaments and tools usually associated with modern human industries from Châtelperronian levels, along with Neandertal teeth. Another is St. Césaire, where the relation of the Châtelperronian with Neandertals was reinforced by the discovery of a burial. Nevertheless, a new radiocarbon dataset and a reinvestigation of the available data from the first and the second sites, respectively, have challenged the association between human remains and cultural assemblages. These studies, however, provide no direct evidence to invalidate the association and can, at most, be taken as implying that a minority of the symbolic objects from the Grotte du Renne’s Châtelperronian may be intrusive. The Fumane evidence on the ornamental exploitation of the feathers of large raptors and other birds strengthens the contention that the Grotte du Renne’s associations are genuine and adds to the growing body of data that demonstrates the appearance of modern behavior in extinct autochthonous populations of Europe well before the immigration of modern humans. Moreover, the absence of evidence of this kind in the earliest Aurignacian levels at Grotta di Fumane proves that, even before the Uluzzian, Neandertals achieved this level of behavioral complexity independently, and that it was not culturally transmitted or mimicked via incoming modern humans. Last, at least in southern Europe, the backdating of the acquisition of valuable elements of bird plumage opens the door to further perspectives in the exploration of the interactions that led to our extinct relatives manifesting an interest in a form of symbolic behavior.