Neanderthals near Barcelona had a bedroom and a kitchen, new research suggests

Even Neanderthals had to rearrange the house when space ran short. New research on a rock shelter near Barcelona shows how they did it.

What happened?

Two studies in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology look at Abric Romaní, a rock shelter in Capellades, in the province of Barcelona. A team from IPHES (Catalonia's institute of human palaeoecology), led by Amanda Merino-Pelaz, analysed 256 combustion structures, or hearths, from six layers dated between 60,000 and 54,000 years ago.

Their finding: Neanderthals used different parts of the shelter for different things. Next to the rock wall, one to two metres away, there were many small fires of about 0.18 square metres. Few bones or tools lay around them, which suggests people mostly rested there.

In the middle of the shelter, hearths were bigger (about 0.49 square metres) and surrounded by bones and stone tools. The researchers read these as places to prepare food and work together. Near the entrance, where the roof stopped sheltering from rain, fires were larger and worse preserved. They may be linked to outdoor jobs such as butchering animals.

A second study found small clusters of charcoal far from the fires in the southern sector. The authors think Neanderthals may have cleared out combustion waste and dumped it in a dedicated area.

Why does it matter?

Archaeologist Jan Kolen had argued that Middle Palaeolithic camps were constantly reorganised, with no fixed layout. Nena Galanidou linked more defined activity zones to the Upper Palaeolithic, tied to modern humans.

The Capellades findings challenge that split. They show Neanderthals could organise a settlement and keep that layout over time. When sediment buildup made the northwest area unusable, activities moved northeast, yet the hearths kept similar shapes for around 6,000 years.

There are caveats. Hearths can't reveal every function of a space. Two layers hold only 18 and 13 structures, too few for solid statistics. Some surfaces may combine several successive visits, and identifying sleeping areas relies on comparisons with recent societies that may not represent everyone.

How did we get here?

The site was identified in 1909 by Amador Romaní Guerra, and Eudald Carbonell took over the excavations in 1983. Sediment deposits more than 50 metres thick, plus travertine (a porous limestone), have preserved wooden-object imprints and hundreds of hearths.