The south of the Iberian Peninsula is the last refuge of the Neanderthals before they died out. Various relics from caves testify to this. Now archaeologists have discovered further remains of the Neanderthals on the Algarve: petrified footprints. These rare artifacts have been preserved on two rocky and steep former dune sections. The footprints probably come from a man and two children as well as a teenager who climbed the dunes there. They reveal how the Neanderthals moved on the Atlantic coast and what they were eating.
During the Stone Age, Neanderthals occurred in large parts of Europe and Asia, from Siberia to Western Europe. Neanderthals also lived on the Iberian Peninsula how various archaeological traces from Spain and Portugal occupy. Accordingly, these early people lived mostly in small, family groups in caves and camps on the coasts. There they found a comparatively mild climate and a lot of food until the last ice age. The south of the peninsula, the outermost southwest of Europe, is therefore the last distribution area of the Neanderthals before they died out about 40,000 years ago.
Rare Neanderthal footprints from Portugal
As her life looked at the Atlantic, researchers around Carlos Neto de Carvalho from the University of Lisbon have now reconstructed on the basis of new finds: On two steep sections on the Algarve coast, they discovered fossil footprints on rocks on the beach-at Monte Clérigo and at Telheiro. The prints were once in wet and soft sand deposits or sediment stones, were petrified there by calcification and thus preserved, as the team explained. Through erosion and because the sea level has increased significantly since then, such foot traces are rarely preserved or found. The traces in Portugal were probably buried by sand avalanches and thus preserved from erosion.
The fossil footprints in the two former coasters are around 78,000 years and 82,000 years old. At that time, the Neanderthals were the only representatives of the Homo genus who lived on the Iberian Peninsula. It is therefore very likely that the footprints come from these early people.
The first ensemble consists of a total of 26 footprints, spread over five rows of running and placed occasionally. Based on the traces or foot size and their distribution, the team calculated who left them and in which direction. Accordingly, they come from three people: an approximately 1.70 meter tall man, an approximately 1.10 meter -tall child aged around eight years and a 0.70 meter toddler under two years. This team of three has obviously laboriously climbed the steep dunes at Monte Clérigo. The archaeologists found only a single footprint at the second place in Telheiro. He could come from a teenager or a woman about 1.50 meters.
Hunting ground in the dunes
In contrast to bones or tools that may have been transported or left behind on the beach, the footprints show immediately where the Neanderthals were on the Algarve. This allows conclusions to be drawn about your movements and your behavior on the beach – “a snapshot of life tens of thousands of years ago,” said the team. Based on the footprints, it can be seen, for example, whether the Neanderthals went for a walk, fled or chased something. The course and distance of the traces also reveal how they moved along the coast and whether they explored adjacent forests, dunes, lagoons or rivers.
Neto de Carvalho and his colleagues also examined this and found it so firmly: the Neanderthals were probably practiced in skilfully moving and hunting cliffs on the rough beach and on the border. They may also use the dunes and rocks to ambush or cook in a ambush. It fits that the archaeologists found both human footprints and that of a deer in Monte Clérigo. Since there were also children’s footprints there, the team suspects that they were taken to the everyday hunt of adults at a young age.
From other archaeological sites on coasts on the Iberian Peninsula, it is already known that the Neanderthals in these regions mainly fed on deer, horses and rabbits. In addition, there were apparently plants and animals from the sea or coastal area, such as fish, shellfish, birds and other mammals. The new finds from Portugal now suggest that the Neanderthals also chased and captured this food directly on the beach. “This indicates a comprehensive food search strategy that optimally used local biodiversity,” writes the team around Neto de Carvalho. Accordingly, they had better adapted their way of life to the coastal environment than previously assumed.
Source: Sevilla University; Specialist articles: Scientific Reports, DOI: 10.1038/S41598-025-06089-4