When we picture Neanderthals, we usually picture stone tools, because stone is what survives. A new study from Spain suggests that picture is missing half the story. At a rock shelter called Abric Romaní, researchers have documented a rare collection of Neanderthal wooden objects from an everyday living space, showing that these early humans were capable Neanderthal woodworkers.
The study was published on October 7, 2026, in Science Advances, led by Palmira Saladié of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA).
What was found at Abric Romaní
Abric Romaní is a cliffside rock shelter in Capellades, about 50 kilometres west of Barcelona. The team analysed 597 wood imprints and charred wood remains from 16 archaeological levels, dated to between roughly 62,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Among them, the researchers identified objects made or used by Neanderthals, including:
- Wooden spears and pointed sticks, including metre-long digging sticks near hearths
- Domestic items such as trays and tripods
- Structural pieces, including a straight 5-metre log stripped of branches that may have been part of a windbreak or shelter
- A roughly 30-centimetre “club-like” object that, according to the study, has no clear parallel anywhere in the prehistoric record
“Not so long ago, Neanderthals were considered our less complex cousins,” co-author M. Gema Chacón told Science. “Now it looks like their behaviors were very close to those of Homo sapiens.”
Why this site is special
Most earlier evidence of Paleolithic wooden tools comes from muddy lakeshore sites, where wooden spears were used for hunting. Abric Romaní was a home. At 300 square metres, the shelter was about the size of a large house, and different hearths and clusters of tools suggest separate sleeping and working areas.
Periodic flooding is what preserved it. Rising water covered wood, bone and stone tools, and minerals in the water slowly hardened into travertine, a type of limestone. The wood itself rotted away, but it left hollow shapes behind. Starting in 1995, researchers poured resin into these hollows to make casts of the original objects.
The limits experts point out
This is where outside experts urge care. Because most objects survive only as empty spaces, details like tool marks are often lost. Annemieke Milks of the University of Reading, who wasn’t part of the study, told Science that “there are things we can’t see.”
Dirk Leder of the Lower Saxony Heritage Protection Office, also not involved, called this a serious drawback: without clear cut marks, “it’s extremely difficult to say what’s natural and what is modified.” In other words, it can be hard to tell a straight branch from a shaped spear. Even the club’s purpose is unclear. Chacón says it could be for hunting or for breaking bones or shaping stone, and that the team is sure only that its shape isn’t natural and that it shows scrape marks.
Two sides of the story
For the researchers, the find adds to evidence from Germany and Italy that Neanderthals were skilled craftspeople. New Scientist summed it up as Neanderthal Europe being “as much a wooden age as a stone age.”
For sceptics, the conclusions are only as strong as the casts allow, and some identifications may be revised as new methods appear. Both points help us read the study fairly.
Why this story stayed with me
As a writer, I feel this study is a gentle reminder that what survives isn’t the same as what existed. For decades, stone made Neanderthals look simple because their wood, plant fibres and hides vanished. I love the idea of a 300-square-metre home with a kitchen corner and a sleeping area. At the same time, I appreciate the experts who say “we can’t be sure yet,” because that honesty is what keeps science trustworthy.
For more science stories, read how scientists mapped every neuron in a fly brain, what meteorite dust reveals about how the Sun formed, and why anxiety may be a survival tool.