Thu, Feb 20, 2020 page6

• Iraq’s Shanidar Cave reveals new insights into how Neanderthals buried their dead

  • Reuters, WASHINGTON
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  A Neanderthal skeleton unearthed in an Iraqi cave famous for fossils of the extinct cousins of Homo sapiens is providing fresh evidence that they buried their dead — and intriguing clues that flowers might have been used in such rituals.

  Scientists on Tuesday said 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.

  

  The bones of a Neanderthal’s left hand emerge from sediment in Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of Graeme Barker / Reuters

  The cave was a pivotal site for mid-20th century archeology. Remains of 10 Neanderthals — seven adults and three infants — were dug up there six decades ago, offering insight into the physical characteristics, behavior and diet of the 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.

  

  The entrance to Shanidar Cave in the foothills of the Baradost Mountains in Iraq is pictured in an undated photograph.

  Photo courtesy of Graeme Barker / Reuters

  However, critics cast doubt on the “flower burial,” arguing that the pollen could have been modern contamination from people working and living in the cave, or from burrowing rodents or insects.

  The bones of Shanidar Z, 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 University of Cambridge osteologist and paleoanthropologist Emma Pomeroy, lead author of the research published in the journal Antiquity.

  Academics have argued for years about whether Neanderthals buried their dead with mortuary rituals much as our species does, part of the larger debate over their levels of cognitive sophistication.

  “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.

  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.

  “It seems clear that Shanidar was a special place, with bodies being placed just in one part of a large cave,” University of Cambridge archeologist and study coauthor Graeme Barker said.
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