What are Neanderthal Doors Like
Thank you for inviting me to your blog today, Dan, to be part of your weekly Thursday Doors discussion. My post will be a little different because the ones I’ll talk about are 75,000 years old!
My latest prehistoric trilogy, Savage Land, stars Neanderthals. They lived in a time when man was just learning about sewing, cooking, heating natural resources like bark and sap to produce usable materials like glue. Because they inhabited a wide range of environs, from the frigid cold of Siberian mountains to the more moderate Iberian Peninsula, it is clear they altered their lives to fit where their nomadic wanderings landed them.
An adaptation I’ll discuss today, to fit this blog hop’s theme, was the entrance to their domiciles, what we modern folk call “doors”. Did Neanderthals have doors to their homes and if so, what were they like?
First, Neanderthals were nomads. They lived in areas for short periods, hunted and gathered food until resources became scarce and then moved on. They didn’t build houses–that happened much later in man’s cultural evolution–but they did establish residences that served their needs for periods of time until they moved on. Neanderthals were the apex predators wherever they went, always the strongest and smartest (though that change with the arrival of Homo sapiens—a story for another article). Neanderthals were few in number–about 100,000 in all–so didn’t worry about invasions from their own kind, but instinctively cautious, careful, and prepared for the unexpected.
That’s where doors came in. Doors were not so much an entrance to be opened and closed as a barrier against predators who didn’t belong in the domicile. Here are some examples of their use of doors:
- Neanderthals are famous for living in caves. Often, a bramble bush blocked entrance from cat or canis species who previously lived there, other Uprights who might want to settle there, or another uninvited intruder.
- The cave mouth could be covered with skins to block the wind, snow, or rain, allowing the thick rock walls and the interior fire pit to warm the cavern and keep the occupants cozy
- When Neanderthals sheltered outdoors, they might pound tree limbs into the ground or embed stalagmites collected from a cave’s interior, tusks, or long bones in a circle and then spread the hides of large animals between them to block the weather.
- In the absence of other materials, Neanderthals could place the fire pit in the cave’s mouth to deter entrance and also, vent smoke from the flames to the outside.
- Because the mouth of many caves were small, a chosen sentry who stayed awake during the night could prevent unexpected entries, a sort of “human door”.
Since Neanderthals lived from approximately 450,000 years ago to 45,000 years ago, a time without books, pottery, weapons, and many other artifacts that could provide proof of what really happened either didn’t exist or wasn’t preserved over time, much extrapolation is made from rocks, stone tools, and educated guesses. These suggestions for doors are grounded in what we know about Neanderthal behavior and capabilities, that they were clever, possessed the human drive to unravel problems and the capacity to solve even new ones.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.
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Summary
In Endangered Species, Book One of the trilogy, Yu’ung’s Neanderthal tribe must join with Fierce’s Tall Ones—a Homo sapiens tribe–on a cross-continent journey that starts in the Siberian Mountains. The goal: a new homeland far from the devastation caused by the worst volcanic eruption ever experienced by Man. How they collaborate despite their instinctive distrust could end the journey before it starts or forge new relationships that will serve both well in the future.
In Badlands, Book Two, the tribes must split up, each independently crossing what Nature has turned into a wasteland. They struggle against starvation, thirst, and desperate enemies more feral than human. If they quit or worse, lose, they will never reunite with their groups or escape the most deadly natural disaster ever faced by our kind.
Join me in this three-book fictional exploration of Neanderthals. Be ready for a world nothing like what you thought it would be, filled with clever minds, brilliant acts, and innovative solutions to potentially life-ending problems, all based on real events. At the end of this trilogy, you’ll be proud to call Neanderthals family.
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