“Keep the Home Fires Burning”: Neanderthal fuel selection as a cognitively modern process

Knight, Rupert John Colson (2024) “Keep the Home Fires Burning”: Neanderthal fuel selection as a cognitively modern process. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.

Abstract

Despite significant recent research into the Middle Palaeolithic, and Neanderthal cognitive behaviours in particular, little is currently understood of their fire use, which could have been a merely occasional behavioural trait enabled by natural lightning strikes, or a frequent behaviour necessary for survival, joined with a complex suite of pyrotechnic-dependent behaviours. In order to address this shortcoming, this thesis discusses fire use, and in particular, Neanderthal fuelwood procurement behaviours. I firstly model Neanderthal fire use across 237 sites, finding frequent fire presence but little evidence of pyrotechnic-dependent technologies. This thesis subsequently focuses on an obvious method of fire optimisation, namely choosing good fuels, and whether these fuels were selected and curated, or gathered at random from the landscape. I find that Neanderthals displayed distinct foraging preferences for particular fuelwood genera, with certain woods far more prevalent in the charcoal record than in the palynological landscape record. Since this could result from pollen or charcoal biases, I conducted original laboratory experiments on over 40 fuelwood genera to determine genera-dependent wood-to-charcoal conversion rates which differ according to quantifiable criteria. These show that apparent Neanderthal fuel choices are unlikely to have been caused by charcoal production or fragmentation biases. Studies on genera-specific fuelwood combustion properties and replicated foraging qualities shows that preferred woods were easily transportable or high-quality fuels, and most often both. There were few instances of Neanderthals burning low-quality fuelwoods at random, which would suggest occasional expedient fire use. This thesis overall suggests that many fire-using Neanderthals were highly selective in fuelwood procurement, either selecting by fuel quality or minimising foraging effort, both models suggesting strong prior pyrotechnic experience. This understanding is of similar level to modern human hunter-gatherers, and suggests that in pyrotechnic planning, Neanderthals may have followed similar behavioural trajectories.

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