The Life and Death of Shanidar 1: A Neanderthal Story

[00:00:00]Roughly 50,000 years ago in what is now  Iraq, this Neanderthal Shanadar 1 aka Nandy, walked the Earth. Using the latest scientific  evidence, what can we say about his life and death, his childhood, his diet, his  society, his life-threatening injuries?

[00:00:26]This is the life and death of a neanderthal.

[00:00:38][Music] For all great apes, whether human or non-human,  childhood is a time of learning and exploration but also vulnerability. This was undoubtedly the  same for neanderthals but sadly so many details are now obscured by the mists of time. For some  neanderthals childhood was undoubtedly a hard time. Living life as nomadic hunter-gatherers  during the pleistocene when Earth was colder than it is now was probably not easy. Food,  warmth and safety were not guaranteed. Stress lines in the teeth of this Neanderthal child  from Western France suggest that for certain periods of their childhood they were under a  lot of physical stress either from illness or malnutrition. Possibly a result of having to  struggle through a particularly hard winter.

[00:01:28]The owner of that tooth was luckier than  others though. At Moula-Guercy the remains of at least two adults, two teenagers and two child  neanderthals were found, dating to around 100,000 years ago. Sadly for these people it seems they  came to a grisly end. Every bone from this cave is shattered, butchered, cut up clear signs of  cannibalism. All the remains were found against the East wall of the cave totally disarticulated,  mixed in with the remains of other animals.

[00:02:00]It's entirely possible all of these  remains come from one terrible event.

[00:02:07]How common cannibalism was amongst neanderthals  is difficult to say. It was certainly not a daily event for most, but did Nandy have to occasionally  resort to it when times were tough, when no animals could be found, when the last horse  had left the valley? It's certainly possible.

[00:02:27]Life was not all bad though. 80,000 years ago on  what are now the beaches of Normandy a Neanderthal family lived amongst the dunes, leaving behind  bones, tools and heartwarmingly little handprints and footprints. Of the 257 prints recovered the  majority belonged to children and adolescents.

[00:02:48]The youngest being probably around two. We just  can't help but imagine how this family played in the sand. Did the children collect shells  leaving us a tiny handprint as they knelt down? Did their older brothers and sisters yell  at them to keep up? Did the two-year-old hold on to their mother's hand as they tentatively  tiptoed on the shifting sand? And what did they think of the wolf following behind them?  We're so fortunate to have even the smallest clues of family life preserved for 80,000 years.  A handprint a footprint they're always so special.

[00:03:23]For our young Nandy at some point he must have had  to learn how to survive in this Paleolithic world of his. He no doubt had to learn how to produce  the stone tools that were so essential for life in the Paleolithic. Patiently learning how to  knap and break rock. He would have had to learn how to process game and cook meat over the fire to  provide for his hungry family. Finding such traces of children's journeys into adulthood is hard  but not impossible. Over in Cova Negra in Spain, 244 bird remains were recovered from  a layer dating to the pleistocene, mainly doves and choughs. Many of them  clearly butchered and burnt. Not only does this show that neanderthals were adept  at catching small prey, but the tiny scratch marks on these bones could have been made  by tiny Neanderthal fingers. Perhaps they were thrown a bird to practice on as their  mum and dad butchered the rest of the meal.

[00:04:19]Unfortunately for our Nandy, he led a long  and painful life. In fact he's got to be a contender for the most injured person ever found  archaeologically. At some point he received a terrible debilitating injury to the right hand  side of his body. We'll never know how of course.

[00:04:37]Did he chase a mountain goat too far and fall from  a great height? Was he pushed perhaps? Whatever the cause of this injury his right arm was  absolutely shattered. It did heal but in doing so became withered and small. He also completely lost  his right forearm. He survived this injury and we can only speculate how. The pointed angle of the  surviving bone has left anthropologists to wonder was he the world's first successful amputation.  The fact that the bone had healed in this deformed state does show that he survived for a long time  after this injury. How was Nandy able to prevent himself from dying from blood loss? How did the  others around him prevent that from happening?

[00:05:20]Perhaps in the same incident a blow to the  left-hand side of his face crushed his skull and deformed his eye socket. This almost certainly  resulted in him being blind in one eye or at least having some difficulties with that eye. He had  a healed fracture in his foot, injuries to his leg and knees which probably caused him to walk  with a limp. Separate to all of these injuries he was also struck on the head again hard enough to  deform his skull and if all of that wasn't enough, he was also partially deaf. Bony growths within  both ears certainly caused some form of hearing loss. This could have been caused by the blow  to the skull or he could have had a congenital condition called DISH. We'll never know for  certain to order these injuries were sustained in. What we can say for certain though is that  there is no way he could have survived all of this on his own, especially the loss of his arm. Others  must have cared for him, brought him food, given him the care and time needed to recover. Nandy  went through an awful lot in his life, especially for a time with absolutely no painkillers.  You can't help but wonder if neanderthals used local plants or mushrooms in some way  to dull the enormous pain he would have felt.

[00:06:30]Intriguingly, one Neanderthal from El Sidron in  Spain was found to have the bark of poplar wood in the plaque in their teeth. Poplar does naturally  contain salicylic acid the active ingredient in Aspirin so there is some tentative evidence that  neanderthals used plants in their environment as natural medicines, as natural painkillers.  However he managed to cope, it's so interesting that what is perhaps evidence of horrific violence  amongst the Neanderthals, all these injuries and and problems he had, is also the best evidence of  their humanity, their kindness, loving each other caring for each other. In spite of all of these  injuries he seemingly lived until he was around 40 and the rest of his body is as robust and sturdy  as any other neanderthals suggesting he adapted to his condition and lived a physically active  lifestyle. Perhaps he learned some one-handed knapping techniques. Considering when he lived he  almost certainly had no choice but to continue on, nothing else to do about it, however, he may  have been spared the most difficult of hunts.

[00:07:41]When we picture neanderthals we often imagine them  at the height of the Ice Age hunting woolly rhinos and mammoths and for sure some did live like  that. 125,000 years ago neanderthals in Germany were hunting straight tusked elephants each  weighing up to 11 tons or even more. Huge beasts, a huge amount of food, and an incredible display  of Neanderthal hunting and teamwork. For our Nandy though he was probably not used to such Ice  Age conditions. Although we're still trying to reconstruct the environment around Shanidar  cave at the time Nandy lived it seems that the climate was probably not wildly different to  how it is today. Perhaps Shanidar cave and his surrounding environment would be immediately  recognizable to him. Nandi's meals were also made of less intimidating prey than mammoths, at  least the meals he enjoyed at Shanidar anyway. The majority of faunal remains from the cave are made  up of wild goats, who still clamber up and down the mountains of the region. How did Neanderthals  hunt such nimble prey? Did they lie in wait on well trodden paths or hurl spears and rocks at  them from above? Can't have been that easy. The fact that goats make up such a large percentage  of the remains also gives us a possible insight into when Shanidar cave was occupied. Still today  shepherds guide their flocks of sheep down towards the Shanidar valley to overwinter before moving  them higher into the Zagros Mountains in the spring. It's interesting to think that the ebb  and flow of Nandi's life might have been similar, winter at Shanidar, spring and summer higher  in the mountains. It's certainly possible.

[00:09:21]Nearby in Syria in the El Kowm Basin, the tip of  a flint spear still embedded in the neck bone of a wild ass has been found by archaeologists.  Possibly ambushed on its way to seasonal lakes that dot the area. Such a large animal would have  provided a good meal for Nandy and his family but it wouldn't have sustained them for too long.  Neanderthals were stocky broad-chested folks living extremely active lives, perhaps even  needing to eat 15% more calories than modern humans. In challenging cold climates they may  have needed 7000 calories a day. For a family of 10 neanderthals that would equal roughly three  reindeer a week, quite a big ask. Such large calorie requirements meant neanderthals could not  have been fussy eaters at all. No doubt all the fattiest richest parts of the body, the brains,  the tongue, organs were all widely consumed, but they probably didn't turn their nose up at  humbler prey too. Grubs, insects things like that, covering their prey, found under logs, would  have made a great snack for a hungry Nandy.

[00:10:30]The more we study neanderthals, the more we  realize that their diet was not just meat.

[00:10:35]Another Neanderthal found in Shanidar cave,  Shanidar 3, had the plaque of their teeth analyzed. Far from relying on goats and asses the  plaque revealed he ate a diet rich in fruits like date palms and wild seeds and grasses like  wetch, such tiny seeds are notoriously time consuming to gather and the process must have been  a major investment of time for Nandi's community.

[00:10:59]It's easy to think of this extra calorie  requirement as a strictly logistical problem but this increased need for calories would have had a  ripple effect throughout all Neanderthal society.

[00:11:13]Was it hard for Nandi's mother to gather  enough food to feed herself and breastfeed her hungry baby? How did Neanderthal women  deal with this challenge? How did Neanderthals picture their landscape and assess whether  there was enough resources for them all?

[00:11:29]And is it possible that this increased need for  food played a part in their ultimate downfall?

[00:11:35]Did leaner, more efficient bodies expanding  Out of Africa have an advantage in hard times?

[00:11:42][Music] The more we learn about neanderthals, the  more evidence we have of their adaptability.

[00:11:51]From turtles, to mussels, to hibernating bears  everything was on the menu and they produced a variety of tools to get this food. Not only do we  have all the stone tools that they left behind but every now and again when conditions are right we  get glimpses of their Ingenuity. Neanderthals in Italy were using beeswax mixed with conifer  resin to stick their spear points to shafts, warming the mixture over the fire before applying  it to their tools. They were really doing prehistoric chemistry and they no doubt helped  themselves to some honey whilst they were at it.

[00:12:24]One of the biggest gaps in the archaeological  record is the fact that wood decomposes, we're largely ignorant of all the wooden artifacts  that neanderthals would have created, but every now and again we do find some. From Abric Romani  Rock shelter in Northern Spain a wooden tool left a trowel-shaped impression in the dirt. Are these  the fragmentary remains of a neanderthal kitchen tool, or or a small shovel? From Poggetti Vecchi  in Italy the remains of 58 digging sticks have been found. Nandy and his group must have produced  similar tools to help them gather all the plant Foods they were eating, and most famously of all  the Shoningen spears, which date to around 380,000 years ago. Probably made by very early  neanderthals, found amongst the butchered remains of horses no doubt ambushed by these neanderthals.  More recently an intriguing wooden object believed by some to be a throwing stick has also been  found, this also dates to around 300,000 years old and it's tools like this that probably allowed  neanderthals to hunt small prey like birds.

[00:13:32]Most of what we know about neanderthals comes from  cave sites, just because they're so geologically stable not much really comes in and disturbs  them. But neanderthals certainly moved outside of these Rock shelters, just finding clues about  how they lived and survived when they were out in the world is so tricky. At La Folie, France,  archaeologists have unearthed what they think was a neanderthal Camp. A ring of small post  holes surrounded evidence of Paleolithic Life, like flint knapping, butchering and cooking.  All the activities were carried out at different spaces and this shows that neanderthals  had a very developed sense of space, they weren't just mindlessly bumbling around. We  see this elsewhere too at Kebara in modern Israel where the rubbish of daily life is organized  into middens and at El Salt, in Spain we have evidence of Neanderthals burning their poo, they  didn't want to leave that lying around the cave, very house proud of them. At Abric Romani again  it's even possible that there's some evidence of Neanderthals creating lean-tos and things like  that inside of the cave to provide extra shelter.

[00:14:38]I'm sure if more wood survived to the present  day we would absolutely be amazed at what neanderthals were capable of and how they  created tools to live in their environment.

[00:14:49]All of this clearly shows that neanderthals  had the ability to inject meaning into their environment, they're very house proud. It  makes you wonder what did Nandy think about Shanidar cave after a long goat hunting  expedition, was he excited to see it?

[00:15:03]Was he relieved to be sat around the warm  hearth of his home? I certainly think so.

[00:15:11]The ability of Neanderthals to inject meaning into  things was not purely practical and definitely entered the realm of art and symbolism. At  170,000 years ago, at Bruniquel in France, Neanderthals walked 336 meters through the  dark cold wet cave into the main chamber.

[00:15:31]Here they constructed a ring of stalagmites  and within this circle they burnt small fires on top of little piles of stalagmites. If the  dates and our interpretation of this site are correct it undoubtedly forces us to question  exactly what was going on in a neanderthal's brain this is really incredible stuff and  yet evidence for Neanderthal art doesn't end there. From Krapina in Croatia and Grotte du  Renne in France we have evidence of Neanderthal jewellery made from talons and teeth. From two  sites in Spain we have evidence of Neanderthals mixing pigments in seashells and Incredibly  at three sites, also in Spain the possible remains of Neanderthal painting. The faint  remnants of a hand stencil from Maltravieso, red ocher staining the cave wall at Ardales and  most incredibly of all a panel of strange symbols at La Pasiega. All of these paintings seemingly  predate the arrival of homo sapiens in Europe by 20,000 years so neanderthals must have made them.  Incredibly at La Pasiega these newly arriving Homo sapiens may have even added to the Neanderthal  scene by drawing animals inside the panels.

[00:16:48]What did these paintings mean? What happened  in the fires of Bruniquel? Why explore deep into these caves? One hypothesis is that they were  drawn deep into caves to hunt hibernating bears, which we know neanderthals certainly did, and once  down there their imagination took over for some reason. We'll never know for sure but it's certain  proof that there was some sort of spark behind those large Neanderthal eyes. The stereotype of  of mindless brutes eeking out a meager existences permanently relegated to the past. We don't yet  have any evidence of art from the Shanidar region but they certainly displayed a level of symbolic  thinking in how they disposed of the Dead.

[00:17:31]As Nandy and his family were walking over  the hills, pursuing goats gathering grains, they undoubtedly ran into other humans. Some would  have been neanderthals like them but some were not quite the same. At between 40 to 55,000 years old,  Nandy lived during or even after the time period that a group of homo sapiens left Africa at least  according to our current understanding. As we now know through genetics, when our ancestors came  into contact with neanderthals, they mated with them had children with them. You have Neanderthal  DNA within you now. Considering the fact that all non-african people have this genetic legacy  it must have occurred soon after this group left Africa. It therefore almost certainly  happened in the region of Western Asia. Though to be clear modern African people do also have  Neanderthal ancestry just less than non-africans.

[00:18:25]In other words Nandy lived at close to the time  and in the exact place where our two lineages merged for perhaps the last time. The Neanderthal  genes that live in your cells could well be his, or at least belong to other neanderthals  that lived around Shanidar. Neanderthals are not our evolutionary cousins they  are in a small way our direct ancestors.

[00:18:47]In one sense it's easy to imagine that these two  groups running into each other was a novel event, that it was unusual for them but more and more we  find that interactions between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals was complex occurring many times  throughout our evolution. In the same way that we have Neanderthal DNA in our blood, Nandi  certainly had the DNA of homo sapiens flowing through his. It really shows that homo sapiens and  Neanderthals are not really two distinct species but rather points on a spectrum of humanity.  Nandy really was every bit as human as you or I.

[00:19:23]The fact that we have Neanderthal DNA within us  today shows that they were similar enough to have children with Homo sapiens and more importantly  that these children were successful enough in their communities to pass on their DNA too. So  I'm sure at some point these interactions between neanderthals and Homo sapiens were peaceful. At  least some of the time they must have been. But other times they may not have been. Shanidar  3, the individual with all the plant remains in his teeth, had a vicious cut to one of his  ribs. It had begun to heal but the tip of the weapon may still have been lodged inside as  the rib seemingly healed around something and unlike Nandy who survived for years with  his terrible injuries, Shanidar 3 was not so lucky. They probably died within a few weeks  of receiving this blow. Why was he stabbed like this and who did it we'll never know, but it's  possible that it was conflict between these two groups of homo sapiens and Neanderthals that this  expanding group of humans were not necessarily the friendliest of neighbours, certainly the rest  of human history would seem to prove that point.

[00:20:33]For Nandy, life seemingly came to an unfortunate  end too. Even though he survived injury after injury, poor vision, deafness a missing arm there  is some evidence to suggest he finally died in a cave-in. Crushed by the very rocks that have  sheltered him during his hard life. Shanidar cave is still well known for Rock Falls today, it's  a dangerous place to excavate. However his story may not quite end there. When Nandy was originally  excavated in the 1950s the idea that neanderthals would bury their dead was highly controversial but  now after 70 years more research it does seem that neanderthals engaged in mortuary behavior,  including simple burials. The Neanderthals at Shanidar Cave are one of the best examples of  this. The original excavator Solecki believed he had found the remains of one Neanderthal when  he was excavating lying on its side in a sort of fetal position. As he prepared to remove  the body for study he discovered the remains of three other neanderthals were in the exact same  spot, so close that the bones had become mixed up.

[00:21:36]The chances of four neanderthals dying  accidentally in the same spot seems highly unlikely, they were almost certainly placed there.  To try and get to the bottom of this puzzle, in 2017 archaeologists returned to Solecki's trench  to see what else they could find. As it turns out there was yet another burial in that spot that  Solecki had missed. These bones were found in a bowl-shaped depression possibly even with their  head placed resting on a stone, great evidence of deliberate burial. The dirt surrounding the body  is especially dark suggesting it's made up of decomposing material, part of this was undoubtedly  the soft parts of the body, but it does also seem that there are plant remains also mixed into this  brown spot. Solecki had believed that the burials at Shanidar had flowers placed over them. This was  a highly controversial statement for the time and it has been debated ever since. The discovery of a  new burial at Shanidar again suggesting some form of organic matter placed around the bodies has  reignited this argument about neanderthals and burial. Did Neanderthals cover the dead with  flowers? Did they place goods in the grave?

[00:22:50]This new burial also seemingly had a flaked stone  in their left hand when they were placed into the ground. Was it a prized possession did the  Neanderthals place it in their hand out of some vague notion that they would possibly still need  it. The mind boggles at the possibilities. I'd love to tell you more but at the time of recording  this research is still ongoing. It would not surprise me one bit if our Nandy had been buried.  It's not guaranteed of course neanderthals can die in accidents just like we can but considering the  effort that these ancient humans went into caring for Nandy during his life, it would not surprise  me in the least that they would have cared for him in death too. Preserving him for tens of  thousands of years and giving us an insight into the incredibly difficult but also rich  and loving lives of our Neanderthal ancestors.