In the 1950s, an American anthropologist, Ralph Solecki, discovered the remains of 10 Neanderthals in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Solecki thought that some of these cave burials were accidental, and it appeared that some had died from falling rocks. But others seemed to have been buried, and there were even traces of flower grain found with one set of remains.
Did this mean the Neanderthals had funerals? With flowers?
Such questions had to wait. Political unrest in Iraq forced Solecki’s team to stop their on-site research. Only in the past decade has a new generation of scientists been able to revisit the Shanidar Cave and learn more about this unique Neanderthal burial site.
Read More: A Neanderthal Fingerprint Points to Art, and Possibly Portraiture, Around 43,000 Years Ago
Neanderthal Burial Practices
Scientists were allowed back in the Shanidar Cave in 2014, but they had to stop a year later as ISIS fighters neared. In 2016, they could resume. This time around, they had help from technology that didn’t yet exist during Solecki’s time and could locate three new sets of remains.
New technology almost meant they could better estimate the age of the remains. In Solecki’s time, radiocarbon dating was limited and could only date back 45,000 years ago. With new methods, scientists were able to determine that one of the individuals buried in the cave was around 70,000 years old and likely died around middle age.
Following Solecki’s lead, the new generation of scientists continued to refer to the individuals by the cave name, Shanidar, and then a unique number from 1-10. The new remains were identified by the letters Z, A, and B. Shanidar 4 was the excavated individual who appeared to have possibly been buried with flowers.
“Shanidar 4 became famous in the 1960s and later because he was argued to have been buried on a bed of flowers, based on pollen found under the body, but our current research suggests the pollen arrived there naturally,” says Emma Pomeroy, an associate professor in archeology at the University of Cambridge and a paleoanthropologist for The Shanidar Cave Project.
Even though the flower-burial hypothesis didn’t play out, Pomeroy says the team was able to learn more about Neanderthal mortuary practices. There is evidence, for example, that the Neanderthals used the same spot within the cave to intentionally bury their dead. They may have also used a grave marker.
“This repeated pattern of behavior might suggest it had some symbolic meaning — rather than being purely practical — though that is harder to be sure about,” Pomeroy says.
Did the Neanderthals Mourn their Dead?
Without written records, it’s impossible for scientists to know exactly what the Neanderthals felt when they buried their dead. However, the Shanidar skeletons have provided insight into Neanderthal life.
Solecki’s team, for example, discovered that Shanidar 1 had lived with many health issues. He had several head injuries that likely made him blind in his left eye. His right arm was paralyzed. It had been broken twice and was eventually amputated above the elbow. The amputation may have been natural, but Pomeroy says it could have been intentional.
“Most of the injuries healed, and the paralysis of the right arm is thought to have occurred during early adulthood,” Pomeroy says.
Shanidar 1’s list of maladies continued. He had fractures in his right ankle and foot, and he likely had arthritis in his knee and ankle. He was hard of hearing, and at one point, he had an infection in his clavicle. Yet, he lived with all these issues.
“This implies that he had some support from his social group, or at least his disabilities were accommodated by others,” Pomeroy says.
Similarly, Shanidar 3 had a puncture wound to his ribs, which would have likely collapsed his left lung.
“Although he died some weeks or months later, the wound had started healing, again suggest[ing] he was cared for,” Pomeroy says.
The repeated use of the cave for burials also suggests that the space held meaning for Neanderthals, and perhaps they had a reverence for their dead. These discoveries have prompted scientists to consider whether Neanderthals have been wrongly underestimated.
“While there has long been an assumption that Neanderthals were unintelligent and unsophisticated — we still use Neanderthal as an insult — researchers have been questioning this idea for a number of decades now,” Pomeroy says.
Read More: The Fascinating World of Neanderthal Diet, Language and Other Behaviors
Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
University of Cambridge. What did Neanderthals do with their dead?
Antiquity. New Neanderthal remains associated with the ‘flower burial’ at Shanidar Cave
LJMU Research Online. Excavating the archives: new perspectives on the Shanidar Cave Neanderthals
Emilie Lucchesi has written for some of the country's largest newspapers, including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. She holds a bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Missouri and an MA from DePaul University. She also holds a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Illinois-Chicago with an emphasis on media framing, message construction and stigma communication. Emilie has authored three nonfiction books. Her third, A Light in the Dark: Surviving More Than Ted Bundy, releases October 3, 2023, from Chicago Review Press and is co-authored with survivor Kathy Kleiner Rubin.
