Been There, Done That! New Discovery Confirms Neanderthals Buried Their Dead Much Before Modern Humans Adopted The Ritual

A 13-year-long study on Neanderthal bones found in south-western France concluded that our human ancestors also buried their dead, according to a New York University press release.

Neanderthals are an extinct species of the genus Homo. Neanderthal remains were first discovered in 1908 at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in south western France. Fascinated and eager to learn more about these creatures, 20^th century archaeologists continued to excavate the site. Ever since, University researchers have conducted various studies on Neanderthal remains and uncovered many interesting facts about these forerunners of modern humans. The most recent fact uncovered was that they buried their dead.

"This discovery not only confirms the existence of Neanderthal burials in Western Europe, but also reveals a relatively sophisticated cognitive capacity to produce them," explained William Rendu, the study's lead author and a researcher at the Center for International Research.

Initially, excavators did speculate that the site was a burial ground for the Neanderthal but  other scientists disagreed saying that the burials may have been a one-off and not intentional.  However, in 1999, Rendu and his collaborators began excavating seven other caves in the area. The excavation was concluded in 2012 and the bodies of two children and one adult Neanderthal were retrieved along with bones of bison and reindeer.

The excavation in 1908 didn't report findings of tool marks or anything that would suggest digging. However, the depth at which the bodies were recovered led researchers to conclude that it was not a natural occurrence in the caves.

To confirm their speculations, researchers re-examined the findings of the 1908 excavation and compared them to the cave burials. They found that the Neanderthal remains had few cracks, no weathering-related smoothing, and no signs of disturbance by animals.

"The relatively pristine nature of these 50,000-year-old remains implies that they were covered soon after death, strongly supporting our conclusion that Neanderthals in this part of Europe took steps to bury their dead," observed Rendu. "While we cannot know if this practice was part of a ritual or merely pragmatic, the discovery reduces the behavioral distance between them and us."

This is not the first time researchers have discovered that Neanderthals used similar techniques that modern humans utilized. In August this year, Shannon McPherron, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute found that Neanderthals used bone tools way before modern humans, unless humans existed earlier than believed, reported LiveScience.

Another study found that Neanderthals used toothpicks for more than just removing food scraps from between their teeth. They used it to weaken pain caused by oral diseases like swelling of gums, suggesting Neanderthals were the first to conduct palliative treatment of dental disease with this tool.

In fact, this extinct species was so much like modern humans that it even indulged in interior decoration! University of Colorado Denver found that Neanderthals organized their living spaces in ways familiar to modern humans, according to a press statement.

Neanderthals are closely related to modern humans and lived between 600,000 and 350,000 years ago. A comparison of the DNA of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens (humans) suggests that they diverged from a common ancestor between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago. Though not certain, it is speculated that this ancestor may be Homo heidelbergensis that originated between 800,000 and 1,300,000 years ago.