Kyoto, Japan -- Tens of thousands of years ago, our own species, Homo sapiens, coexisted with Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis. Many of us living today carry a small amount of Neanderthal DNA, indicating that the two species may have shared much more than just the same land. Now, a breakthrough archaeological discovery has revealed that the two species did not merely cross paths: they possibly shared a common culture that spanned over 20,000 years.
Humans migrated from our original home in Africa to other parts of the world in the Out of Africa event, but human fossils around this time have been scarce in the Levant, a primary corridor between Africa and Eurasia. In search of more evidence of both modern humans and Neanderthals, an international team of researchers -- including scientists from Türkiye, France, and Japan, including Kyoto University -- headed to Üçağızlı II Cave in southern Türkiye for excavations.
At this site, five years of meticulous millimeter-by-millimeter excavation revealed evidence of both species living in the same space, utilizing identical stone tool technologies and survival strategies. Remarkably, the evidence also suggests this shared behavior extended beyond practical aspects and included the use of non-utilitarian materials.
The researchers found that both Neanderthals and modern humans selectively collected a specific type of marine seashell that had virtually no value as food, and which had previously been associated exclusively with modern humans. This shared preference for a non-utilitarian, potentially symbolic object suggests that cultural exchange occurred across the biological divide, transcending species barriers.
"Our findings indicate a deep level of cultural interaction," says a corresponding author Naoki Morimoto of KyotoU. "These two distinct but closely related human groups were not just adapting to the same environment: they were probably sharing symbolic preferences."
The modern human fossils recovered from Üçağızlı II Cave date to a period between approximately 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, placing them broadly within the pivotal Out of Africa timeframe, which has been pinpointed genetically. This suggests that these individuals found between Eurasia and Africa may represent a close relative of the founding lineage of all living non-African populations today. Alternatively, they could be previously unknown survivors of an earlier, preceding wave of modern humans migrating into the Levant.
By capturing this critical window of co-existence, the discoveries at Üçağızlı II Cave fill a long-standing gap in the global archaeological and paleontological record, potentially rewriting our understanding of how early human species interacted, communicated, and shared their worlds with each other.
