Neanderthal Religion? Burials, Shrines and Caring for the Dead | Early European History And Religion

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NEANDERTHAL RELIGION

It is possible that Neanderthals believed in spirits and the afterlife. Scientists speculate that Neanderthals possibly buried food and prized items with their dead for their trip to the afterlife as the Egyptians and many ancient cultures did. The practice of burying valuable items with the dead was practiced by the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, horsemen of the Central Asian steppe and others.

On on the floor of Des-Cubierta cave in northern Spain, Neanderthals placed the dead body of a small child aged two-and-a-half to three years old on two slabs of stone, with aurochs horn on top, and set the body on fire. Archaeologist found some some of the child’s teeth.

Neanderthal were more spiritually and intellectually advanced the popular image of them suggests. Neanderthals left behind evidence of spiritual perceptions. This is most clearly seen in Neanderthal burials: 1) at Shanidar in northern Iraq, and in 2) Russian Turkestan. The Shanidar grave contained the body of a 42-year-old man, sprinkled with flowers. The Turkestan grave contained a 4-year-old boy buried with the accouterment of a warrior [Source: Internet Archive, from UNT]

The Shanidar burial is not clear and unequivocal evidence of a belief in an Afterlife. But in the case of the boy from Turkestan, one wonders why a boy, who could not have been a warrior, be buried with the equipment of a warrior unless there was some expectation that he might need it? This is the best evidence of a belief in an afterlife 45,000 years ago, though it is not proof

Websites on Neanderthals: Neandertals on Trial, from PBS pbs.org/wgbh/nova; The Neanderthal Museum neanderthal.de/en/ ; Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Neanderthal Burial Practices

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Neanderthal burial
Neanderthals buried their dead. A headless Neanderthal skeleton found in Kebara cave in Israel was found in a shallow pit with its arms folded, suggesting formal burial rites. Scientists also argue that the fact that so many Neanderthal skeletons have been found in good conditional suggests burial. The remains of Neanderthals that are known to have buried their dead have been saved from erosion and damage.

According to Live Science: Before they began interring their dead in the ground proper around 100,000 years ago, Neanderthals routinely left the deceased deep inside the caves of Europe and the Middle East. To Neanderthals, the dark, mysterious recesses of a cave may have seemed like a good place to transfer over to the otherworld, some archaeologists have argued. [Source: Heather Whipps, Live Science, December 6, 2007]

According to Archaeology magazine: For more than a century, scholars have debated whether Neanderthals buried their dead as Homo sapiens do. New research supports the argument that our species is, in fact, not alone in this behavior. Reexamination of Neanderthal bones first discovered at the La Ferrassie rock shelter in the 1970s suggests that the Neanderthal remains were purposefully buried. The bones belonged to a 2-year-old child who was carefully laid to rest in a shallow grave around 41,000 years ago. Animal horns and blackened fire pits encircling the remains of the Neanderthal toddler suggest a 41,000-year-old funeral rite. [Source: Archaeology Magazine, March 2021; Washington Post]

Neanderthals, living 100,000 years ago in Central Europe, buried their dead with food, hunting weapons, charcoal and prized items such as tools, bear skulls, goat horns and medicinal flowers. Neanderthals buried their dead with blue hyacinth, yellow groundsel, knapweed and yarrow. One grave in Shanidar Iraq contained the remains of eight different flowers. The dead there were smeared with ocher, something Australian aborigines still do today.

Speculated on why so many 300,000-year-old Neanderthal bones were found at the bottom of 160-foot shaft in Spain, Juan-Luis Arsuaga of the Complutense University of Madrid told National Geographic, "They weren't brought here by carnivores. None of the bones have tooth marks...there are no tools so people weren't living here. Maybe they inhabited the entrance of the cave, and since corpses smell, they dropped the bodies of their dead down here to dispose of them. Perhaps there was ritual. Whatever the reason, they gave their dead special treatment. This tells us something about how their minds evolved. Animals don't take care of their dead."

Neanderthal Child Who Died 41,000 Years Ago in France Was Intentionally Buried

Peter Dockrill wrote in Science Alert: We don't know whether it was a boy or a girl. But this ancient child, a Neanderthal, only made it to about two years of age. This short life, lived about 41,000 years ago, was uncovered at a famous archaeological site in southwestern France, called La Ferrassie. The remains of several Neanderthals have been found there, including the most recent discovery, the child, known only as La Ferrassie 8, fond in the early 1970s,[Source: Peter Dockrill, Science Alert, December 10, 2020]

With questions about whether Neanderthals did indeed bury their dead foremost on their minds, researchers from Le Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) and the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in France conducted a thorough re-evaluation of La Ferrassie 8's ancient remains "The discovery and context of this skeleton has generally been regarded as poorly documented, but in fact this deficiency stems from a lack of the necessary processing of the information and materials from La Ferrassie related to the penultimate excavation phase (1968–1973)," the researchers said in their study

In their study published in Scientific Reports. the researchers reviewed the notebooks and field diaries used by the original excavation team, as well as analysing La Ferrassie 8's bones. They also performed new excavations and analyses at the La Ferrassie cave shelter site where the child's remains were found. The results of their multi-disciplinary approach suggests that – despite the substandard nature of previous research into La Ferrassie 8's purported burial – the old conclusions were correct: the child was buried. "The combined anthropological, spatial, geochronological, taphonomic, and biomolecular data analysed here suggest that a burial is the most parsimonious explanation for LF8," the authors explain. "Our results show that LF8 is intrusive within an older (and archaeologically sterile) sedimentary layer. We propose that Neandertals intentionally dug a pit in sterile sediments in which the LF8 child was laid."

In reaching this conclusion, the team confirmed that the well-preserved bones were laid to rest in an unscattered manner, remaining in their anatomical position, with the head raised higher than the rest of the body, even though the lay of the land was inclined at a different angle (suggesting a contrived elevation by Neanderthal hands). Further, there were no animal marks on them, which the team consider another probable sign of a prompt, intended burial. Especially when compared to the weathered state of various animal remains found in the vicinity. "The absence of carnivore marks, the low degree of spatial disturbance, fragmentation, and weathering suggest that they were rapidly covered by sediment," the researchers explain. "We cannot find any natural (i.e. non-anthropic) process that could explain the presence of the child and associated elements within a sterile layer with an inclination that does not follow the geological inclination of the stratum. In this case, we propose that the body of the LF8 child was laid in a pit dug into the sterile sediment."

Neanderthals Burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints

In 1908, archaeologists first excavated the cave of La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southwestern France and made a startling discovery — what seemed to be an intact Neanderthal burial. Paul Jongko wrote in Listverse: “The bones were were so well preserved that, at the time, scientists speculated that they were intentionally buried. It turned into a heated debate by other experts, who claimed that the discovery had been misinterpreted and that the burials had not been intentional. [Source: Paul Jongko, Listverse, May 14, 2016]

“In 1999, William Rendu, a researcher at France’s National Center for Scientific Research, and his team excavated seven other caves in La Chapelle-aux-Saints. They discovered the Neanderthal skeletons of two children and an adult, along with the remains of a reindeer and a bison. The researchers analyzed the depression where the skeletons were discovered and realized that it wasn’t a natural feature of the cave floor, indicating that it had been dug intentionally. They also added that the skeleton’s pristine conditions—including the one found in 1908—indicated that they were covered soon after their death.” Rendu, claimed, “This discovery not only confirms the existence of Neanderthal burials in Western Europe, but also reveals a relatively sophisticated cognitive capacity to produce them.” He also said that Neanderthals had buried their dead long before the arrival of modern humans in Europe

Zach Zorich wrote in Archaeology magazine: However, excavation methods in the early twentieth century were sloppy by modern standards, and the 20 or so Neanderthal “burials” found since then have all been seriously questioned — many believe they are the result of natural features and depositional processes. in 2014, a research team led by Cédric Beauval of the private company Archéosphère, and Rendu have reexamined La Chapelle-aux-Saints and found evidence that the burial is authentic. Their analysis shows that the burial pit is not a natural feature, and probably was dug by Neanderthals. But Rendu does not believe these burials were common — a 2011 reanalysis of a purported Neanderthal burial at Roc de Marsal showed that it was the result of natural processes. “Some of the Neanderthals in some regions, in very particular moments, made these kind of burials,” Rendu says. Having burial practices suggests that Neanderthals possessed spiritual beliefs, but what they may have been is anybody’s guess. [Source: Zach Zorich, Archaeology magazine, March-April 2014]

Neanderthals Put Time and Effort Put Into Caring for Dead

Neanderthals' relationship with the dead ranged from carefully preparing burials to using the bodies for food or tools. A study published in the journal PNAS in December 2013 suggests that Neanderthals took time to bury their dead as much as 50,000 years ago. "For years there was a huge debate among anthropologists about how complex the Neanderthals' thoughts actually were," said William Rendu, lead author of the study and a researcher at the Center for International Research in the Humanities and Social Sciences in New York. "We knew the Neanderthal was a good tool maker, but there was nothing that linked them to art or symbolic thought." [Source: Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2013 \=/]

Deborah Netburn wrote in the Los Angeles Times: “The idea that Neanderthals deliberately buried their dead was first floated back in 1908. In August of that year the remains of a male Neanderthal were discovered in a small cave in the town of La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southwestern France. He was found lying in a pit that looked as if it had been dug deliberately, leading researchers to suggest that intentional burials may have been part of Neanderthal culture. Since then, as many as 40 potential Neanderthal burial sites have been discovered across a wide swath of the world ranging from southeast Spain to Mongolia. \=/

“However, not everyone believe these places are truly Neanderthal burial sites. There have been questions from the scientific community about the accuracy of the excavation of the burial site in 1908 and suggestions that the Neanderthals did not have the cognitive ability to choose to bury their dead. To find out, Rendu and his team reexamined the original cave in France in 1999 to see what they could learn using modern archaeological techniques. Over the course of a 13-year-study, they found several lines of evidence to suggest that this Neanderthal burial site was real and that the burial was intentional. \=/

“The pit where the remains were found was clearly not a natural part of the cave floor, and digging it would have taken a lot of time and effort on behalf of other Neanderthals, Rendu said in an interview. The researchers also note that both reindeer and bovine bones were found in the cave, but they were more deteriorated than the Neanderthal bones, suggesting the Neanderthal had been covered up quickly and completely. \=/

He added that the quick burial was not just a speedy way to get rid of a decaying body. "If they just wanted to get the body away from them, they just had to put it in the open air and the carnivores would have eaten it," he said. "Instead they removed a large quantity of sediment. It took a very long time for them to do, and it was not essential to their survival. If we look carefully, we find the Neanderthals may have had some symbolic or spiritual thoughts that were not needed just to survive."” \=/

Reconstruction of the Chapelle-aux-Saints grave

Shanidar Flower Cave Burials

In late 1950s and early 1960s, the discovery of four Neanderthal skeletons clustered together in Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan led some scholars to conclude, controversially, that Neanderthal had burial customs. Archaeology magazine reported: Since then, other scholars have questioned that interpretation, suggesting the quartet died together of exposure or during a rock fall. Now, a team co-led by University of Cambridge bioarchaeologist Emma Pomeroy has returned to Shanidar and unearthed the upper portion of a Neanderthal skeleton not far from where the four complete skeletons were originally excavated. Dubbed Shanidar Z, the bones were surrounded by sediment that had accumulated quickly, suggesting, says Pomeroy, that the body had been intentionally covered. Other remains of Neanderthals have been found in the cave, but they seem to date to as much as 30,000 years later than Shanidar Z and the other four burials. “All this evidence will contribute to our understanding of the complexity of Neanderthal treatment of the dead,” says Pomeroy. “It may have varied across time, perhaps indicating different cultural traditions — a very human trait.” [Source: Eric A. Powell, Archaeology magazine, May-June 2020]

Shanidar Z was found to be reclining on his or her back, with the left arm tucked under the head and the right arm bent and sticking out to the side. Will Dunham of Reuters wrote:A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead — and intriguing clues that flowers may have been used in such rituals. Scientists said in February 2020 that they had discovered in Shanidar Cave in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq the well-preserved upper body skeleton of an adult Neanderthal who lived about 70,000 years ago. The individual — dubbed Shanidar Z — was perhaps in his or her 40s or 50s. The sex was undetermined. [Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, February 19, 2020]

“The cave was a pivotal site for mid-20th century archaeology. Remains of 10 Neanderthals — seven adults and three infants — were dug up there, offering insight into the physical characteristics, behavior and diet of this species. Clusters of flower pollen were found at that time in soil samples associated with one of the skeletons, a discovery that prompted scientists involved in that research to propose that Neanderthals buried their dead and conducted funerary rites with flowers. That hypothesis helped change the prevailing popular view at the time of Neanderthals as dimwitted and brutish, a notion increasingly discredited by new discoveries. Critics cast doubt, however, on the "flower burial," arguing the pollen could have been modern contamination from people working and living in the cave or from burrowing rodents or insects.

“But Shanidar Z's bones, which appear to be the top half of a partial skeleton unearthed in 1960, were found in sediment containing ancient pollen and other mineralized plant remains, reviving the possibility of flower burials. The material is being examined to determine its age and the plants represented. "So from initially being a skeptic based on many of the other published critiques of the flower-burial evidence, I am coming round to think this scenario is much more plausible and I am excited to see the full results of our new analyses," said Pomeroy, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity.

“Shanidar Z appears to have been deliberately placed in an intentionally dug depression cut into the subsoil and part of a cluster of four individuals."What is key here is the intentionality behind the burial. You might bury a body for purely practical reasons, in order to avoid attracting dangerous scavengers and/or to reduce the smell. But when this goes beyond practical elements it is important because that indicates more complex, symbolic and abstract thinking, compassion and care for the dead, and perhaps feelings of mourning and loss," Pomeroy said.

"Whether the Neanderthal group of dead placed around 70,000 years ago in the cave were a few years, a few decades or centuries — or even millennia — apart, it seems clear that Shanidar was a special place, with bodies being placed just in one part of a large cave," said University of Cambridge archeologist and study co-author Graeme Barker.

Stone Structures in a French Cave: Neanderthal Shrines?

Perhaps the best illustration of Neanderthals’ capacity for complex cognition and symbolism was found in 2016 in Southern France. More than 300 meters (1,000 feet) inside the Bruniquel Cave, Neanderthals assembled two rings of 400 deliberately broken stalagmites, with other material piled and propped around it. Some say it resembles a labyrinth, or a shrine. [Source: Jon Mooallemjan, New York Times magazine, January 11, 2017 ||*||]

The mysterious ring-shaped structures found in Bruniquel Cave are believed to have been fashioned by Neanderthals about 176,500 years ago. Associated Press reported: “The structures were made from hundreds of pillar-shaped mineral deposits, called stalagmites, which were chopped to a similar length and laid out in two oval patterns up to 16 inches high. They were discovered by chance in 1990, after remaining untouched for tens of thousands of years because a rockslide had closed the mouth of the cave at Bruniquel in southwest France. While previous research had suggested the structures pre-dated the arrival of modern humans in Europe around 45,000 years ago, the notion that Neanderthals could have made them didn't fit long-held assumptions that these early humans were incapable of the kind of complex behavior necessary to work underground. [Source: Associated Press, May 26, 2016 ~]

Using sophisticated dating techniques, a team led by archaeologist Jacques Jaubert of the University of Bordeaux, France, found that the stalagmites must have been broken off the ground around 176,500 years ago "making these edifices among the oldest known well-dated constructions made by humans. Their presence at 368 yards from the entrance of the cave indicates that humans from this period had already mastered the underground environment, which can be considered a major step in human modernity," the researchers concluded in a study published online by the journal Nature in May 2016. ~

“Jaubert ruled out that the carefully constructed rings, which show traces of fire, could have come about by chance or been assembled by animals such as the bears and wolves whose bones were found near the entrance of the cave. "The origin of the structures is undeniably human. It really cannot be otherwise," he told The Associated Press. The Neanderthals who built them must have had a "project" to go so deep into a cave where there was no natural light, said Jaubert. They probably explored underground as a group and cooperated to build the rings, using fire to illuminate the cave, he said. "These are exceptional tours, certainly for extraordinary reasons we do not yet know." Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who wasn't involved in the study, said the site "provides strong evidence of the great antiquity of those elaborate structures and is an important contribution to a new understanding of the greater level of social complexities of Neanderthal societies." ~

“The authors said the purpose of the oval structures — measuring 172 square feet and 25 square feet — is still a matter of speculation, though they may have served some symbolic or ritual purpose. "A plausible explanation is that this was a common meeting place for some type of ritual social behavior," Villa suggested. Wil Roebroeks, a Neanderthal expert at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, noted that the structures in Bruniquel may represent only the tip of the iceberg of Neanderthal culture, but most relics would have been made of organic material and decayed long ago. "Bruniquel cave (shows) that circular structures were a part of Neanderthals' material culture," said Roebroeks, who called the rings "an intriguing find, which underlines that a lot of Neanderthal material culture, including their 'architecture,' simply did not survive in the open." ~

La structure at Bruniquel Cave

“Roebroeks, who also wasn't involved in the study, said the fact that similar rings haven't been found anywhere else makes it hard to test any theory about how they came to be. "One could even envisage that groups of Neanderthal teenagers explored this underground environment deep in the cave, as teenagers tend to do, building fires, breaking off stalagmites and gradually turning them into the structures that 175,000 years later made it into (the journal) Nature," he said.” ~

Neanderthal Rituals at a 40,000-Year-Old Cave in Spain?

In January 2023, team of Spanish archaeologists announced in Nature Human Behavior that they had unearthed a large number of large animal skulls in a 40,000-year-old cave about 90 kilometers (55 miles) north of Madrid. . Some experts suggested the discovery could be the first evidence of an ancient hominin rituals The skulls — belonged to large mammals such as horses, bison, deer and elk — were found in Cueva Des-Cubierta, a known Neanderthal site that was originally discovered in 2009. [Source: Moira Ritter, Miami Herald, January 26, 2023]

Moira Ritter wrote in the Miami Herald, Unlike other, similar discoveries, archaeologists said the remains they found within the cave were not consistent with subsistence activities, but instead appeared to be symbolic. Evidence at the site indicates that the mammals were killed and consumed outside of the cave. The skulls that were recovered all had appendages but were missing their teeth and jaws, leading experts to believe that they were used as hunting trophies. Two rhinoceros skulls were found in the cave, archaeologists said. Some of the smaller bones showed signs of being cooked or burned on a hearth.

The evidence at Cueva Des-Cubierta is the first of its kind. It may indicate that Neanderthals have had symbolic capacity. The team also identified more than 1,000 ancient tools, including anvils, hammerstones, cores, flakes and other shaped tools, they said in the study.

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Ancient Foods ancientfoods.wordpress.com ; Times of London, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP, Lonely Planet Guides, “World Religions” edited by Geoffrey Parrinder (Facts on File Publications, New York); “History of Warfare” by John Keegan (Vintage Books); “History of Art” by H.W. Janson (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.), Compton’s Encyclopedia and various books and other publications.

Last updated May 2024