Our Ancestors Loved Shell Trinkets, Just Like Neanderthals. New Research Suggests It’s a Sign of Shared Culture Across Species

Based on artifacts found in a limestone cave on the Mediterranean coast, scientists think the two species might have shared similar survival strategies, stone tool technologies and symbolic traditions

Sarah Kuta | Daily Correspondent

July 8, 2026 10:26 a.m.

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Neanderthals and Homo sapiens may have had more in common than previously thought, according to new research.

Archaeologists discovered evidence in Turkey that suggests the two species engaged in many of the same behaviors and practices, even though they might have inhabited the area at different times. The findings, published July 6 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could shed new light on the development and persistence of culture—and might also help scientists unravel the enduring mystery of the relationship between the two species.

“Our findings suggest that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens likely shared more than just the same landscape,” lead author İsmail Baykara, an archaeologist at Gaziantep University, tells CNN’s Katie Hunt. “Although we cannot yet prove direct contact, the remarkable continuity in technology, hunting practices and the transport of bead-seashells is consistent with the idea that these populations interacted and shared cultural traditions over time.”

For the study, researchers spent five years investigating Üçağızlı II, a roughly 600-square-foot limestone cave on the Mediterranean coast just north of Syria. Their excavations revealed that Neanderthals used the cave between roughly 77,000 and 59,000 years ago, followed by H. sapiens between approximately 59,000 and 47,000 years ago.

Archaeologists found evidence of “remarkably” similar behaviors and “overall ways of life” in layers from both periods, Baykara tells Scientific American’s Jackie Flynn Mogensen. Neanderthals and H. sapiens, for instance, both hunted wild goats, fallow deer, roe deer and wild boars. Both species gathered flint and other natural materials from the surrounding area, and they created similar types of stone tools.

“This unique situation suggests that culture is shaped not only by biology but also by local traditions, allowing different species in the same region to maintain shared behaviors for thousands of years,” Baykara tells CNN.

Researchers were also intrigued to find shells from the same type of snail in both the Neanderthal and H. sapiens layers. This particular species of snail, Columbella rustica, had little to no nutritional value, and researchers think both Neanderthal and H. sapiens might have collected the shells as non-utilitarian trinkets.

Some of the shells appear to have been perforated, while one appears to have been heated up to change its color. Another shell has a smooth surface, which suggests it was either intentionally polished or worn repeatedly.

“This strong preference suggests that both human groups shared a common cultural evaluation of this specific shell, finding it uniquely valuable or attractive,” study co-author Naoki Morimoto, a paleoanthropologist at Kyoto University, tells NewScientist’s James Woodford.

Overall, the findings suggest “a deep level of cultural interaction” between Neanderthals and H. sapiens at the site, Morimoto says in a statement. “These two distinct but closely related human groups were not just adapting to the same environment: they were probably sharing symbolic preferences.”

It’s not clear how or why Neanderthals and H. sapiens exhibited such similar behaviors at the site. But the researchers’ leading hypothesis is that the two species might have co-existed with each other for a time. Neanderthals and H. sapiens may have been “in contact and shared cultural aspects,” the scientists write in the paper.

This is not the first time researchers have found signs of cultural continuity between Neanderthals and H. sapiens. They reached a similar conclusion after excavating Tinshemet Cave in Israel, where evidence suggests the two species created and used similar tools and shared similar lifestyles and burial customs.

Scientists have many unanswered questions. For instance, how long did this shared behavior last, and how widespread was it? And did Neanderthals and modern humans behave similarly while living in the cave because they were interbreeding? Researchers hope future excavations might provide the answers to these and other questions, while also building “a more comprehensive picture of human evolution and cultural development during the Late Pleistocene,” they write in the paper.

But, in the meantime, discoveries at sites like Üçağızlı II and Tinshemet are “changing what we thought we knew about Neandertals, Homo sapiens and other contemporary Homo groups,” April Nowell, an archaeologist at the University of Victoria who was not involved with the research, tells Live Science’s Olivia Maule.

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Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.