Neanderthal Burial Practices & Symbolic Thought | Paleoanthropology

[00:00:00]Thank you to brilliant.org for supporting PBS.

[00:00:04]Over 45,000 years ago, a group of  Neanderthals stood in Shanidar Cave,   located in modern day Kurdistan. At their feet lay the body of a male Neanderthal.   They are preparing his final resting place,  shifting aside two female Neanderthals and an   infant to make space within a hole in  the cave floor caused by a rockfall.   As they place him with the others, a member  of the group scatters flowers around him:   yarrow, cornflower, and thistle, to name a few.

[00:00:31]This is one interpretation of the final  resting place of a Neanderthal known as   “Shanidar IV”, nicknamed the “flower burial.” But did Neanderthals actually bury their dead,   as many cultures do today? And if they did… what would that mean?

[00:00:45]Burial practices often involve much  more than simply disposing of a body.

[00:00:49]They are complicated rituals – ones that  involve abstract and complex ideas of life,   death, and what happens after  our time on this Earth.   So, if Neanderthals buried their dead, maybe they  weren’t just unintelligent cavemen after all.   Maybe they had more in common  with us than we thought.   When the first Neanderthal fossils were discovered  in the mid-1800s, they were initially imagined to   be what we now think of as stereotypical cavemen. Many assumed that whatever “Neanderthal   culture” was, from their stone tools to their  behavior, it must have been inferior to ours.

[00:01:23]But this started to change in the 1950s, when  researchers revisited the fossil evidence and   came to very different conclusions  from those earlier anthropologists.

[00:01:32]Some of the physical traits that were thought to  be signs that Neanderthals were inferior to us,   Homo sapiens, were actually the result  of old age or medical conditions.   And this re-evaluation would be  significant as more Neanderthal   fossils were discovered – especially  ones that looked like potential burials.

[00:01:47]Ok, but why? What’s so significant  about burying the dead?

[00:01:50]First, a definition. Burial can be much more than simply   placing a body in the ground – an act that can  have a range of practical benefits like foiling   scavengers and controlling the scent of decay. If a body is carefully and intentionally placed in   the ground in specific ways, it might indicate  something more meaningful, like caring among   group members or concern for lost loved ones. So intentionality and purpose is at the heart of   the archaeological discussions about burials. And, depending on the complexity of that burial   itself– like when objects are found beside  a body– this can be even more telling.

[00:02:22]See, some archaeologists view burials as  potential evidence of symbolic behavior.  Because, today, actions like preparing a body  for burial, positioning it in the ground,   and placing goods alongside it often have a lot of  symbolic significance shaped by cultural beliefs.

[00:02:36]And because symbols represent complicated,  abstract ideas, symbolic thinking has often been   linked to higher levels of intelligence. In fact, symbolism has generally been   assumed to be unique to Homo sapiens. So, if we found evidence that Neanderthals   buried their dead, it could show that they  were not unintelligent, brutish cavemen at all.

[00:02:54]In the early decades after their 1950s image  rehab, a Neanderthal child was discovered at   a rock shelter named La Ferrassie in France. This individual was unearthed in 1970 and 1973,   and was known as La Ferrassie 8. It was  approximately 2 years old at death and was   one of seven Neanderthals found at the site. The group included adults and young children,   and was surrounded by odd mounds of earth. Some researchers have suggested that this   may have once been a family living in the rock  shelter in which they would eventually be buried.

[00:03:22]And those strange mounds may possibly have  been part of some symbolic burial rite.

[00:03:27]Other researchers, though, have pointed out that  the mounds look similar to landscape features   sometimes caused by the melting of permafrost. But a closer analysis of La Ferrassie 8 undertaken   recently has revealed important details about  the position and the preservation of the body.

[00:03:40]The position of La Ferrassie 8 suggests that  the body was laid purposefully, with the head   slightly higher than the rest of the body – an  orientation that's unlikely to occur naturally.

[00:03:49]Also, juvenile bones are generally  very fragile. So, the simple fact   that La Ferrassie 8 was preserved at all may be a  testament to the care taken in burying the body.

[00:03:58]When compared to animal bones found in a nearby,  contemporary context, the preservation of this   Neanderthal child is even more noticeable. Overall, this suggests that La   Ferrassie 8 was buried intentionally. And similar preservation and positioning among the   other Neanderthals at the site suggests that this  may be the case for the rest of the group, too.

[00:04:15]And this isn’t the only site with  a possible Neanderthal burial.

[00:04:18]In 1983, a partial Neanderthal  skeleton was recovered from   the site of Kebara Cave in Israel. Of the 23 individuals identified in the cave,   this especially well-preserved adult – known  as Kebara 2 – has been interpreted as an   intentional burial for a couple of reasons. The fossils had no evidence of tooth marks   from scavenging hyenas, for example,  unlike other fossils in the cave.

[00:04:38]And, strangely, most of  Kebara 2’s skull wasn’t found.

[00:04:42]Yet, there were no signs of broken pieces  that might suggest the skull had either   been destroyed or degraded over time. And there was evidence it must have   been there originally - an upper  tooth was found near the lower jaw,   which showed no signs of being disturbed. Some researchers think that the skull was   carefully removed at some point,  perhaps to be buried elsewhere.

[00:04:58]Like La Ferrassie 8, these physical  characteristics of the bones could   suggest that there was some sort of  intentionality behind the body’s disposal.

[00:05:05]But does this mean that Neanderthals  were thinking symbolically?

[00:05:09]Since the early 2000’s, discussions around  Neanderthal cognition and their ability to   use symbolism have become more complicated. On one hand, many anthropologists today agree   that Neanderthals were smart and social enough  to have cultural practices of their own.

[00:05:23]We now know that they sometimes made jewelry  from eagle talons, for example. This, too,   points to a capacity for symbolic thought,  as these don’t have a practical use.

[00:05:31]But on the other hand, scientific advances  in analyzing taphonomy – a.k.a. the things   that happen to a fossil between death  and excavation – have increased the   skepticism of some researchers. They point to natural causes to   explain some of the features that were once  thought to be evidence of burial rites.

[00:05:46]And that brings us back to Shanidar Cave. Since the “flower burial” hypothesis was   published, many archaeologists have argued  that the evidence is highly circumstantial,   especially when you consider other explanations. For example, the proximity of the Neanderthals   to signs of rockfall have led some to  suggest that this was their cause of   death and how they ended up preserved,  rather than being intentionally buried.

[00:06:08]And even the connection between the  presence of the flower pollen and inferred   symbolism has been called into question. It’s been suggested that the pollen was   simply introduced by burrowing animals. And this has been supported by the observation   of rodents around Shanidar Cave, as well as  the identification of the same flower species growing nearby.   But the picture continues to get more complicated. In 2017, new excavations revealed the first   Neanderthal found in the cave in over 25 years. And although only the top part of the body   was recovered, its position indicates  that it may have been posed in death.

[00:06:38]The Neanderthal’s head is resting on its  left hand, and a triangular stone seems to   have been placed underneath its head and  shoulders, like an uncomfortable pillow.

[00:06:47]A piece from a stone blade was also found  resting against one of the Neanderthal’s ribs,   which might have originally  been placed on top of the body.

[00:06:53]More work needs to be done on this  discovery, but given the presence   of this potential “grave good,” as well as  the body’s proximity to the flower burial,   this new find may help shed more light on the  possibility of intentional burials at Shanidar…   And the potential capacity for  symbolic thinking among Neanderthals.

[00:07:09]So, like many of the biggest questions in human  evolution, whether or not Neanderthals buried   their dead is still open for debate. But… does it matter? Well, yes and no.

[00:07:20]Because, regardless of the evidence – or  lack thereof – for burials, sites like   Shanidar Cave helped change our mind about our  closest cousins and what they were capable of.

[00:07:28]The idea that Neanderthals could bury a  member of their group was just as important   as whether or not they actually did. But if we ever found more substantial   evidence for the complex actions  and rituals associated with burying   the dead, the implications would be huge. Because it would tell us that Neanderthals   had the ability to think and communicate  largely abstract ideas, like death... Which is something that we’ve often  considered to be what separates us,   Homo sapiens, from other hominins. And if we can see ourselves in the way   our ancient cousins dealt with death…  what else could we have in common?   Thank you to brilliant.org for supporting PBS.

[00:08:06]Brilliant is an online learning platform  for STEM with hands-on, interactive lessons.

[00:08:10]Brilliant is for curious learners, both young  and old, professional and inexperienced.

[00:08:14]Brilliant courses teach you how to  think (via interactive lessons and   problem-solving activities/exercises) and solve  problems with interactive lessons in STEM.

[00:08:22]For example, Brilliant.org offers a  course called Computational Biology.   Computational biology merges the algorithmic  thinking of the computer scientist with the   problem-solving approach of physics  to address the problems of biology.

[00:08:34]Since 2000, an ocean of sequencing data has  emerged that allows researchers and students   to ask new questions. Here, students  develop an intuition for selecting   foundational problems in computational  biology, like genome reconstruction,   sequence alignment, and building phylogenetic  trees to look at evolutionary relationships.

[00:08:51]The course also addresses some physicochemical  issues of molecular biology, like RNA folding.

[00:08:56]To learn more about Brilliant,  go to brilliant.org/Eons.

[00:09:00]This month’s Eontologists are so  wonderful, we want to bury them in thanks!

[00:09:04]Wow! There's a turn of phrase for you!

[00:09:06]Gale Brown, Juan M., Jacksy Weiss, Melanie Lam  Carnevale, Annie & Eric Higgins, John Davison Ng,   Colton, Chase Archambault, and Jake Hart. Become an Eonite at patreon.com/eons and you   can get fun perks like submitting a joke for  me to read. Like this one from The Burgins.   A T.Rex walks into a restaurant and asks for  an EXTRA juicy stegosaurus tail. The waiter   winks and says, "Ok, once upon a time, there  was a VERY handsome stegosaurus prince..." Keep scrolling, I want to  see how the story ends... Oh, that's it.

[00:09:38]I challenge you viewers to finish that  story in the comments. What happens?   And as always thank you for joining  me in the Adam Lowe studio. Subscribe   at youtube.com/eons for more prehistoric stories.

[00:09:56]But given the presence of this potential “grave  good,” as well as the body’s proximity   to the flower burial, this new find may  help shed more light on the possibility... That's the first time that I've ever, like,   outpaced the teleprompter.  That's my PR right there.