Evidence for funerary behaviour and lethal trauma in a new Neanderthal individual from Shanidar Cave

Abstract

Abstract Shanidar Cave has long featured in debates concerning Neanderthal cognitive capacity and behaviour, including evidence for care and intentional burial. By identifying additional individuals, including Shanidar A reported here, new excavations have expanded a burial cluster first identified in 1960. Shanidar A, an older adult, was deposited around 75,000 years ago, decayed, and their skeletal remains were subsequently disturbed by a flash flood. Our findings raise the minimum number of individuals in this unparalleled cluster to five, supporting interpretations of complex, potentially meaningful Neanderthal mortuary behaviour. Shanidar A also demonstrates major non-fatal trauma to the face and rare evidence of perimortem penetrating trauma among Neanderthals. Trauma among Middle and Upper Palaeolithic Neanderthals and modern humans, and subsequent survival, is common. However, the facial injury was severe and unusual. It suggests care from group members, the evolutionary origins of which are also contentious. The nature of the perimortem penetrating traumatic injury adds to a small corpus of such injuries in the hominin fossil record. The morphology of this scapula perforation is consistent with injury from a wooden spear, providing valuable (albeit indirect) evidence for the use of wooden implements in the Middle Palaeolithic, which is often difficult to demonstrate given the rare preservation of organic materials.