Over 99 per cent of all artefacts from the Middle Palaeolithic are stone. Unlike organic things it cannot rot. Objects made from living things, whether animal or plant, are extraordinarily rare in comparison; teeth and bone survive better than wood, but not always. Yet such substances make up the vast majority of hunter-gatherer technologies, making it likely that there’s a whole ‘ghost’ realm of Neanderthal artefacts we’re missing. Sometimes we see their shadows: use-wear on lithics from many sites matches wood or plants. And very occasionally, precious objects survived the millennia,
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