Researchers have exposed the upper body of a Neanderthal man in the Shanidar Cave in the autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq. For the first time in more than 25 years, an anatomically correctly arranged skeleton part of the human relatives had been excavated, researchers led by Emma Pomeroy from the University of Cambridge report in “Antiquity” trade magazine,
–
Neanderthal lived 300,000 to about 30,000 years ago in Europe, Central Kazakhstan, Asia Minor and the Middle East – partly at the same time as the modern man with whom Techtelmechtel came about. This is still evident today: the Homo sapiens bears up to 2.6 percent Neanderthal DNA in itself,
The researchers discovered the Neanderthal bones in a particularly deep part of the cave. The Neanderthal skull was flattened by the load of the sediments, but the upper body bones were relatively intact. The Neanderthal had put his left hand under his head like a pillow, his right hand was clenched into a fist. The scientists named their discovery “Shanidar Z”.
–
They estimate that the Neanderthal man, who belongs to the bones, lived more than 70,000 years ago. The condition of his teeth indicates that he was middle to old age when he died. It is still unclear what gender he was.
Adversity with Neanderthals on a taxi roof
Pomeroy and colleagues hope that the new find will provide information on how the Neanderthal man deals with his deceased fellow man. “If researchers wanted to investigate how Neanderthals treated their dead today, they had to rely on finds that were 60 to 100 years old,” explains Pomeroy. The new discovery made it possible to analyze the question using modern methods.
–
The Shanidar Cave is the only known Neanderthal site east of the Jordan and therefore world famous. In the 1950s, researchers around the now deceased archaeologist Ralph Solecki from Columbia University in America had already found the remains of nine Neanderthals, including men, women and children. A skeleton was surrounded by remains of primeval pollen.
–
Solecki suspected that Neanderthals buried their dead and practiced funeral rituals. In the active time of the researcher, the Neanderthal was considered even more than today stupid and animalistic, Solecki’s thesis raised doubts about this. However, since its discovery, researchers have been debating whether the extinct species was actually so technologically advanced that it buried its dead.
–
Boulders as gravestones?
This could not be finally clarified with Solecki’s evaluation, also because there was an unfortunate incident while working in the fifties: the researchers had a sediment block with Neanderthal remains transported on a taxi roof from the Shanidar Cave to Baghdad. Afterwards, hardly anything was in its original place.
In the current excavations, the researchers actually wanted to determine the age of the layers of earth in which the findings from that time were lying – and discovered the new bones by accident. The find supports Solecki’s thesis.
–
Pomeroy and colleagues discovered a striking-looking boulder next to the skull of “Shanidar Z”, which could have served as a kind of tombstone. Neanderthals may have come here repeatedly to bury their dead. However, it is hardly possible to determine whether there were weeks, decades or centuries between the burials.
“Apparently, some of the bodies were placed in a water-formed channel at the bottom of the cave, which was then deliberately deepened,” explains Graeme Barker, who led the study. There is strong evidence that “Shanidar Z” was buried, much like modern man does with his dead today.
Early sex with modern people
The scientists removed several meters of sediment from the bone parts and took the skeleton, this time without damage, to a laboratory at the University of Cambridge. There it is now being examined in more detail and could also provide further clues to encounters with modern humans: Examinations in magnetic resonance imaging have shown that the petrous bone, the hardest bone in the mammalian skull of “Shanidar Z”, is intact.
–
DNA samples could possibly be obtained from it. You could confirm the theory that the Neanderthals had sex with modern man in the Middle East when he was just leaving Africa.
“In recent years, we have seen increasing evidence that Neanderthals were more demanding than previously thought – they painted caves and used shells for decoration. Confirming that Neanderthals used the Shanidar Cave to repeatedly bury the dead there would be one indicate high cultural complexity.
–
