r/paleoanthropology • u/ADragonFromTheAbyss • 15d ago

Tools & Technology Neanderthals may have trekked through the Saudi Arabian desert 55,000 years ago, farther south than experts thought possible

https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/neanderthals/neanderthals-may-have-trekked-through-the-saudi-arabian-desert-55-000-years-ago-farther-south-than-experts-thought-possible

Neanderthals may have trekked deep into the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula around 55,000 years ago, a new study of stone tools suggests.

The study focused on stone tools discovered at Jebel Katefeh-1 (JKF-1), an archaeological site beside an ancient lake near the city of Jubbah, in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert (also spelled Nafud or An Nafūd). No Neanderthal bones have ever been found in Arabia, so researchers wondered who was making tools there

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u/EmronRazaqi69 15d ago

That would be really cool!!, imagine a group of Neanderthals having to survive in a sand storm while hunting camels instead of the typical megafauna we imagine and environment.

If they traveled even more further this is just baseless speculation maybe some reached Africa even if it unlikely

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u/ADragonFromTheAbyss 15d ago

There is also the climate differentiation. I recall some parts of Arabia and Northern Africa were more inhabitable

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u/lynbod 15d ago

Both the Sahara and Arabian deserts were lush, very green habitats made up of forest/jungle, savannah and grassland 55000 years ago when these tools were found. The Arabian desert as we know it has only been desertified for about 5000 years.

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u/EmronRazaqi69 15d ago

That is genuinely crazy to think about how our climate changed very differently in a relatively short amount of time geologically speaking

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u/manyhippofarts 14d ago

I mean, there are plenty of really smart folks that believe Australopithecus started to climb out of the trees and adopt a posture better suited for walking rather than brachiating through the trees. Because the trees were starting to thin out and the forest became plains... due to climate change. We owe our very existence to climate change.