Can one secret chamber change the history of the entire humanity? Gorham Cave on the eastern side of Libraclam of Gibraltar has provided archeologists with a rare and close look into the lives of the last Neanderthals of the world. The contents, sealed off to the outside world tens of millennia ago, challenge the long-established theories of the date of the disappearance of these ancient humans – and of what they were capable of.
Gorhams Cave belongs to a four cave system that is cut out of the limestone by the Mediterranean. It was situated on the coast with Vanguard, Hyaena and Caves of Bennett, where the Neanderthals lived about 100,000 years. The entrances to the water now are at the water edge due to rising sea levels though in their time, these caves commanded a wide coastal plain with much wildlife and resources. Archaeologically, it is argued that this habitat was a source of all necessities including flint to make tools and seafood including mussels, seals, and dolphins.
The importance of Gorham Cave is not only in the conservation but also in the unexpectedness. Hearths, stone tools and remains of butchered animals have been found, but more surprising discoveries suggest that symbolism could have been practiced: raptor and corvid feathers, probably worn into ornamentation, and traces of pigment that suggest more symbolic expression. Researchers made a discovery in 2012 of a geometric carving, lines intentionally cut into bedrock over 39, 000 years ago. It was not just an accident and it was confirmed by microscopic and experimental analysis. The time and effort involved in creating the deep and clean grooves implies planning, dexterity and an abstract mind, which was previously regarded as the prerogative of modern human beings.
In 2021 a new chapter was written when a group of scientists, including Clive Finlayson who works at the Gibraltar National Museum, found a chamber in the Vanguard Cave that was closed at least 40,000 years ago. There was a big shell of the whelk that was hauled ashore, and bones of lynx, hyena, and griffon vulture found in the space. The place, some 20m above sea level, suggests intentional transport, and serves to strengthen the notion that Neanderthals moved with purpose and recollection through their environment.
Radiocarbon dating of the artifacts found in Gorhams cave indicates that the Neanderthals might have lived here up to as recently as 24,000 years ago much later than the traditional date of 40,000 years of extinction. This similarity of modern humans in the southern part of Iberia creates some questions on interaction, co-existence, and cultural exchange. Other scientists are warning that uncertainties are still in dating, yet the fact of such late survival is rewriting the debate on the final date of the Neanderthal people.
In 2016, the Gorhams Cave Complex was designated by UNESCO as being of world interest. It does not simply hold physical objects, but also the history of thoughts and culture: the exploitation of various food sources, the production of tools in a more advanced technique, and the establishment of symbolic marks in a common residence. These can be added to an expanding collection of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals were flexible, intelligent and socially complex.
To the archaeologists, Cave of Gorham is not a place, it is a story that was left behind in stone and sediment. Every find, the tooth of milk of a child to a cross-hatched engraving, is a piece of evidence to the portrait of a people who in their last centuries lived on the boundary of two worlds: the well-known rhythms of their coastal home and the new human species which already had invaded their land. The echoes of that tale are still echoing in the Gibraltar caves.
