Stone tools from Saudi Arabia suggest Neanderthals reached deep into Arabia about 55,000 years ago. The finding adds to evidence of Neanderthal life in warm, dry settings.
The study, published August 12 in Quaternary Science Reviews, focused on tools from Jebel Katefeh-1. The site sits beside an ancient lake near Jubbah in Saudi Arabia’s Nefud Desert. Researchers also examined tools from a nearby site called ALM-3.
No Neanderthal bones have been found in Arabia. The research team therefore studied stone flakes to identify their makers. The tools came from a technique called Levallois knapping, used by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.
Researchers built a database of Levallois flakes from Arabia, the Levant, and northeast Africa. They measured hundreds of flakes and compared their shapes across different sites and periods.
The team also tested other causes for shape differences. These included climate, landscape, raw stone, site type, tool group size, and age. Population history gave the strongest match for the differences seen across regions.
Researchers then trained computer models to link stone flakes with known population groups. The models reached more than 93 percent agreement during testing.
When applied to tools from Arabia dated to about 55,000 years ago, the models strongly favored Neanderthal makers. The result fits the wider record of Neanderthals in southwest Asia during the same period.
The team also refined the age of the JKF-1 tools. They used optically stimulated luminescence dating on sand grains from the site. This method records when sand was last exposed to sunlight.
The tools came from a layer where older desert sand met younger lake deposits. The evidence places human activity at JKF-1 around 55,000 years ago. At the time, the region was shifting from dry conditions toward a wetter phase.
The nearby lake was filling again as the climate grew wetter. Plants also spread across parts of the desert. Herd animals likely followed new water and food sources into the region.
Neanderthals may have followed those animals farther into the Arabian interior. Such movements fit other evidence for Neanderthal travel across southwest Asia.
The study also points to a clear split between stone tools from southwest Asia and northeast Africa. This pattern appears in tool groups dating from about 100,000 to 50,000 years ago.
The researchers link much of this difference to population history. Their findings also challenge the old view of Neanderthals as people tied to cold northern lands.
Evidence from the Middle East and Siberia already placed Neanderthals far beyond western Europe. The Saudi tools now point to a possible range farther south.
The evidence still lacks a Neanderthal fossil from Arabia. A bone or ancient DNA sample would provide stronger proof of who made the tools.
Arabia’s hot climate makes such evidence hard to preserve. Stone tools therefore offer a key way to study early human movement across the region.
The study shows how detailed stone tool analysis helps trace human groups where fossils are scarce. Similar methods could aid research in other regions, including parts of South Asia.
If Neanderthals made the Saudi tools, their range stretched deep into Arabia during a wetter period. The finding also places Arabia among areas where Neanderthals and Homo sapiens might have met.