Судлаачид Гибралтарын Вангуард агуйн гүнд хүрээлэн буй орчны нөлөөнд өртөөгүй, эртний хүмүүсийн амьдарч байсан ховор орон зайг илрүүлжээ.
Гибралтарын үндэсний музейн судлаачид 2021 онд Горхамын агуйн цогцолборын дотоод бүтцийг зураглах явцдаа Вангуард агуйн 13 метрийн урттай, элсэнд дарагдсан танхимыг нээжээ. Энэхүү орон зай нь 40,000 орчим жилийн турш агаар болон гэрлийн нөлөөнд ороогүй тул эртний неандертальчуудын үлдээсэн эд зүйлс яг хэвээрээ хадгалагдан үлдсэн байна.
Агуйн шалан дээрээс олдсон шилүүс, толбот цөөвөр чоно, тас шувууны яс болон зориудаар авчирсан далайн дунгийн бүрхүүл нь тухайн үеийн хүмүүсийн үйл ажиллагааны ул мөр юм. Мөн неандертальчуудын ашиглаж байсан Мустьерийн технологийн чулуун зэвсгүүд нь уг газрыг ан агнуурын түр буудал бус, харин гэр бүлийн амьдрах орчин байсныг илтгэж байна. Ялангуяа хүүхдийн сүүн шүд олдсон нь энэхүү дүгнэлтийг бататгах чухал нотолгоо болж байна.
Судалгааны багийнхан неандертальчууд Гибралтар орчимд ойролцоогоор 33,000-аас 24,000 жилийн өмнө хүртэл оршин тогтносон байж болзошгүй гэж таамаглаж байна. Энэ нь неандертальчуудын мөхлийн талаарх өнөөгийн шинжлэх ухааны ерөнхий ойлголтоос хожуу үе бөгөөд Гибралтар нь тэдний хувьд хамгаалагдсан бүс нутаг байсан байх магадлалтай юм.
Одоогийн байдлаар судлаачид агуйн хөрснөөс эртний ДНХ-ийн дээж авах, цэцгийн тоос болон ургамлын үлдэгдлийг шинжлэх замаар тухайн үеийн байгаль орчны нөхцөлийг тодорхойлохоор ажиллаж байна. Гадны нөлөөнд огт өртөөгүй энэхүү агуйгаас неандертальчуудын гал голомтын ул мөр олдох эсэхийг тогтоох нь цаашдын малтлагын гол зорилго болж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
A 13-meter chamber at the back of Vanguard Cave on the Rock of Gibraltar sat untouched for at least 40,000 years, its entrance buried under a collapse of sand. When archaeologists from the Gibraltar National Museum broke through in 2021, the floor was just as the last occupants had left it.
The discovery came during a systematic push to map the full internal dimensions of the Gorham’s Cave Complex, a network of four limestone cavities pressed against the Mediterranean. Researchers found a gap in the ceiling and lowered themselves into a space that no outside air or light had entered since the late Pleistocene. The walls were original. The sediment had not been disturbed.
On the floor, the evidence pointed straight at Neanderthals.
A Room Frozen at the Species’ End
Scattered across the chamber surface were the bones of a lynx, the vertebrae of a spotted hyena, and the wing bone of a griffon vulture, none of which could have wandered in on their own once the entrance was blocked.
More revealing was a large whelk shell, an edible sea snail, found far from where the shoreline would have been at the time. Someone had carried it there deliberately. Stone tools matching Mousterian technology, the toolkit associated with late Neanderthal populations, lay across the surface alongside the bones, left in place rather than buried in deeper layers.
Context matters here.
Evidence of human activity at the Gorham’s Cave Complex stretches across 100,000 years, predating the arrival of modern humans in Western Europe by around 40,000 years. No skeletal remains of Neanderthals or Homo sapiens have been recovered from the caves, but the artifacts, hearths, and food remains tell a consistent story of extended occupation.
Some of the strongest evidence comes from the sea. Researchers have uncovered large quantities of mussel shells along with the bones of fish, seals, and dolphins, remains that could not have reached the cave naturally, and some show signs of processing with knives and other butchering tools. Cross-hatching patterns scratched into the bedrock of Gorham’s Cave proper have been attributed to Neanderthals and dated to over 39,000 years ago, though that interpretation remains debated. Over 39,000 years ago.
First discovered in 1907, the caves did not become the focus of formal archaeological excavations until the 1980s, when the sheer density of the site became apparent. The complex is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, partly on the strength of what keeps emerging from the sediment.
A Later Extinction Than the Textbooks Suggest
The timing of Neanderthal disappearance from Gibraltar is a significant data point on its own. The population here likely persisted until somewhere between 33,000 and 24,000 years ago, considerably more recent than the generally accepted extinction date of around 40,000 years ago. If that range holds under further analysis, some groups of Homo neanderthalensis may have survived at this southern outpost long after the rest of the species was gone.
Gibraltar’s stability as a refugium shows up in what the Neanderthals left behind. They collected food from the sea, hauled shells inland, made stone tools, and, based on evidence from Vanguard Cave, cooked up birch tar, a gloopy adhesive used to attach handles to tools and weapons. Making it requires controlled, sustained heat and knowledge passed between individuals.
Families used the caves.
A child’s milk tooth found near the chamber entrance, in a layer associated with Neanderthal activity, indicates the site functioned as domestic space rather than a short-term hunting station. Whatever drew them repeatedly to these caves, the record they left behind is dense enough that researchers have spent four decades working through it and still have not reached its limits.
What the Chamber Still Holds
Toward the back of the sealed chamber, the Gibraltar National Museum team plans to keep excavating with two specific goals. Because no outside air has penetrated the space, the soil’s chemical composition has not been altered by modern contamination, leaving conditions suitable for extracting ancient DNA from floor sediments. Researchers are also running pollen and microscopic plant analysis on the surrounding material, looking for botanical evidence of what the region supported during the cave’s occupation.
Its sealed state is what makes the chamber scientifically unusual.
Most Neanderthal sites in Europe have been exposed to thousands of years of atmospheric change, groundwater movement, and, more recently, human interference. This one was closed before any of that began.
Now the Gibraltar National Museum researchers want to know whether the chamber contains a hearth installation deeper in the limestone, where preservation conditions have remained undisturbed the longest.
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