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Neanderthals were not the unintelligent cave dwellers of the popular imagination, but may have been capable of extreme violence and care, researchers who discovered bones dating back 75,000 years said.
The claim follows the discovery of a partial skeleton of a Neanderthal, our closest ancient relative, in a cave in Iraq, including a left shoulder blade, several ribs, an almost complete right hand and seven teeth.
The shoulder blade has a 1.5cm wound, suggestive of a deep penetrating stab possibly from a forceful thrust from a sharpened wooden spear, a type of weapon known to Neanderthals.
The individual, named Shanidar A, was found under about 25 feet (7.5 m) of rocks and sediment in the cave in the Zagros Mountains and dated to about 75,000 years old.
Emma Pomeroy, a biological anthropologist from Cambridge University, lead author of the report, said that the spear “went through the skin and into large muscles, especially the pectoralis, as well as the rib cage and the muscles between the ribs, and the lung”.
Ms Pomeroy said the location of the injury “could resemble the type of ‘heart shot’ hunters use to kill animals quickly by puncturing the heart”.
Interpersonal violence, either by members of the same Neanderthal group or rival groups, is the most likely explanation, said University of Cambridge archaeologist Graeme Barker, who has led the Shanidar Cave excavations since 2015.
Researchers, who put Shanidar A’s age in the mid-40s, were unable to determine her gender.
Shanidar A, who was one of five Neanderthals, four adults and one child whose body was discovered in the cave, had survived a brutal injury for at least a year before his death.
The entrance to Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, a site of important Neanderthal remains. Photo: Reuters
Her teeth showed evidence of a blow to the face which resulted in the front teeth being broken and lost. One tooth was split, with half remaining rotated in the mouth and others pushed out of position.
Ms Pomeroy said the pain had been “extreme, and basic needs such as eating and drinking would have been difficult, perhaps meaning Shanidar A required chewing food and being able to rest.
“It is likely that Shanidar A needed some care from members of the group for some basic needs during his recovery.”
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Ms Pomeroy said the bones provide evidence “of two contrasting facets of human nature – care and violence – alongside the same individual.
“We see evidence all around us today that violence and care are both aspects of how we humans behave, and we see that here at Shanidar A.
“Neanderthals were like us in many ways, both the good and the bad, and this find really emphasizes that, countering stereotypes of Neanderthals as unintelligent, insecure cavemen and cavewomen.”
Neanderthals lived as hunter-gatherers and inhabited Eurasia from the Atlantic coast to the Ural Mountains from about 400,000 years ago to a little after 40,000 years ago.
