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Chapter 5: The Living Floors

A living floor At Pech IV, however, we encountered two unusual instances where we were able to document living floors. These occupation surfaces exist because they are sandwiched between episodes of rock fall from the roof of the cave. In each case, a large, relatively flat boulder fell onto the cave floor. At some point after the roof fell, Neandertals came into the cave and went about their various activities. Some animal bone and stone artifacts were deposited on top of the flat surface of the boulder. A small amount of sediment (a few centimeters) also built up. Then another large, relatively flat boulder fell from the cave roof, crushing the bones and stone artifacts, and sealing the living floor. This sequence was repeated again in the same area of the cave. Although we can call these surfaces "living floors" we do not actually know how long they were exposed, and thus there is the possibility that even these surfaces represent more than one brief occupation at Pech IV. In comparison to the other archaeological deposits at Pech IV, however, these two occupation surfaces are indicative of relatively short period of time.


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