If you found this interesting, then consider subscribing. Lots more videos on the stone age to come! I'm always trying to improve my videos and I only use academic sources. ruclips.net/channel/UCZ9jWH_8tJ-Nmaj8dSQdEYA?
One question is the time period of the disposition. Over a long time period or a short one ? Mostly at certain times ? Why so few bodies if it was a just general action for all the dead ? So many questions.
Yup very good questions. With regards to the site in Ethiopia I think they came from the same layer so presumably deposited in a small period of time. As for the sima in Spain it seems that this was going on for a much longer period of time. That's my understanding of the sites anyhow.
You'd think so. Perhaps Chimpanzee mother's are so possessive because at any moment their child might be eaten by an alpha male having a temper tantrum.
Maybe it's to stop the alpha male trying to shag her right away. I mean, who would wanna shag _that_ nasty thing? It could be hypothesised that it serves a biological function. The males generally won't try to mate with females with kids, because giving birth and raising kids takes a certain amount of time to recover from. Even in Humans, if a woman is breastfeeding, she tends to be infertile (but not always! So don't trust that as a contraceptive, kids!). But she needs time to recover from giving birth, heal, and her body chemistry to reset and be ready for reproduction again - to come into 'season'. For Humans it's about six months. So maybe she's not even really thinking about it. Maybe she doesn't even feel grief. Maybe it's just biological programming telling her to carry the dead baby around until she's in season again.
It's funny that you say that. In another account of death amongst chimpanzees I read, the males basically reacted in a sex frenzy. For some reason, every male in this group mated with one specific female, like 14 males all in all. This female was not the mother of the dead baby but nonetheless, interesting response to death lol.
"I don't know who will find this video interesting but I certainly do" I think this is the key to great youtube channels like this. Just cracking on with whatever you find interesting in the hope that others out there will also be into it. I've only recently found this channel but I'm mega into it.
The cause of death could have a strong effect on how bodies were disposed of. Maybe they ate their dead opponents but handled their own dead differently?
I think you may well be correct. You apply the most logical solutions to illogical problems. I saw the cave of the bones and have collected tools from early hominids since the 1980s. I do confess that I am more of a historian of the Medieval world than an anthropologist. Still, I fed my mind by sitting in on lectures from Dr. Spencer while he was at UT and shared my own pictures of myself with SAN people. I was too young and dumb to realize how hugely important they would become twenty years later with the Genome Project. I like your videos very much and if I could ask you one question, it would be this: How come we have so many images of the different kinds of hominids and scarcely any of extinct primates? What did the first Orang look like? What about the mountain gorilla? Where are their ancestors? Am I missing something?
I think that just reflects our selfish nature in a way. I'm sure there are fossils of extinct primates out there I just haven't looked into it. I'm certain it attracts less research dollars than human related projects.
@@StefanMilo Stephan, your videos are amazing. There are many other videos out there from those who mean well, but frankly talk 'over the heads' of most students. You have a wonderful gift of taking complex themes and making them relative for people watching. We need more people like you. I began my university study in Genetics in London. I wanted to study human origins and the future of cloning. But I was an American stoner kid who played baseball, liked to chase girls, and nearly aced the SAT and ACT. The culture shock and my inability to adapt nearly cost me everything. I failed Organic Chemistry. I absolutely had no idea what to do. One course I had was in Pandemics and when we got to the middle ages, my professor came alive with passion. How was I to know that the Black Death of 1348-50 would bring out so much passion for the history and culture of Europe? I survived only because I changed my course of study to Medieval History. But I never lost my love for Anthropology, both physical and cultural. I took whatever opportunity I had to travel. And although I was far more naive then, I did get to visit the SAN people and other indigenous tribes in Africa. I support Survival International - and although I am not always so convinced that their views are correct, I believe their intentions are in the right places. Here is a link to a story of humanity that I wrote, and is continuing to grow and evolve with every new discovery. Like you, my love of human origins compliments the other areas of my background. This is still waiting to be edited for publication, so if there is a grammatical or syntax error within, forgive me! www.robertbluestein.com/single-post/2017/02/10/First-Contact---Neanderthals-Meet-Homo-Sapiens-Part-III
In addition to Stefan's explanation, anything that goes on in a tropical forest is less likely to leave fossils which probably makes researching orangutan evolution challenging
I’ve asked that question about many different supposedly ancient species? You will always hear one animal evolved from this ancient animal? Ok so where are the different variations in between? You see pictures of what a manatee for example evolved from? We know what they look like now? What were they at the halfway point? The experts may be correct? I believe in evolution but I have questions? Lol!
I'll be 64 in July, and hominid evolution, and pre-history generally, have fascinated me ever since my older sister bought me my first dinosaur book for Christmas in 1965. I love your videos, Stefan. I find them both intetesting and quite relaxing! Weighing up a combination of archaeological; paleontological; genetic, current human behavioural; and current ape behavioural evidence; is both fiendishly tricky, and wonderfully enjoyable and fulfilling, all at the same time. Love it. Keep the videos coming Stefan, and thanks so much! Nigel, Scotland
I've worked in Search and Rescue, that includes body recovery, after several floods. I promise you that it is perfectly natural for groups of bodies to settle together. They usually orient themselves just as these individuals found as the waters retract and the pool dries. This looks very familiar to me.
project Odysseus is the best cross channel collaboration since the band TwentyTen teamed up like 6-8 years ago. This is one of my favorite collaborations of all time =3
I wonder if Bonobos have been recorded doing similar things. They have fairly recently started hunting with spears. Something Chimpanzees don't do. It reminds me of the cave in South Africa filled with Homo Naladi. Quick question,. Would those early hominids have the ability to use the plant Chimpanzee fire to light their way into the depths of that cave?
I have been delving into your vids since RUclips popped it in my itinerary . Fantastic way to deliver various hypothesis. You do not overcomplicate things so much to the point of overload... and you are willing to say "I don't know" instead of trying to convince anyone of your particular premise. Rather refreshing.... thank you very much. I expect to learn a lot. Have a great week and please.. may you and yours remain Covid 19 free.
You're Uni experience studying history sounds similar to mine. 11 years later and a Masters degree down Im training yo be a History/Humanities teacher in Secondary. Keep up the good work dude, I've been recommending your videos to students across all Humanities subjects (yesterday your Shanidar I case to someone in an R.E lesson on eutenasia when talking about care and compassion
Love your narrative style Stefano. It is so smooth and has a soothing quality. Damn good videos.. it's difficult to point out my favourite one..because i like them all !!
when humans draw lines and then start shouting at each other, it is very reminiscent of two opposing troops of chimps are hooting and screaming at each other xD
This is absolutely fascinating. I've been watching a few of your videos on and off over the past few weeks, and I'm careful who I subscribe to, because I don't want to unsubscribe later if the rest of the channel doesn't jive (shout out to Survive the Jive) but damn, bro, every video you do is so well-constructed and easy to watch and listen to. No harsh jump cuts, no blaring sound effects, just respectful educated delivery of academic considerations in the field. You earned yourself a permanent subscriber, man. Also, the video you did about spears where you stabbed the squirrel toy, that was funny lmao. Keep this up, dude, this slow and steady thing is how you earn forever fans.
Final example suggests some sort of convergence between latrine habit and burial habit. Smell perhaps? A cave site concentrates the smell during decomposition, but otherwise restricts it from spreading in every direction per winds.
This is wonderful stuff! As a writer and an amateur psychologist, I'm extremely interested in the reasons things are done, whether by humans or non-humans. This explores a middle ground that I rarely see.
It would be cool if you created a video on modern and historical burial practices as a sort of overview of the way humans in particular have been known to mourn their dead. This could be appropriate given the pandemic we're dealing with and how often our society has had to grapple with the grief of death in recent years. You could make parallels to evidence from our hominin ancestors throughout, stuff like that. It would be a really great video and a way to diversify your topics to include contemporary society!
Best RUclips site ever! Thanks for all your research. Have you watched any of Dr. Barnharts, Great Courses series? Really good stuff on ancient North America. Also I had no idea Dave Mathews was so interested in human evolution?
This video brought some interesting thought in my mind. We discovered a lots fossil of the species's between us homo sapiens and the last common ancestors of Chimps and us. But what about the species leading to Chimps? Can the study of our own evolution ever be complete without a complementary study of Chimp evolution?
Your thuroughly rational presentation considering multiple possibilities without leaning bias is scientific and easy to listen to. Leading the topic with the chimpanzee behavioral model is so appropriate. Thank for your good work.
On a tangentially relate topic, I've actually been wondering lately - what did ancient and medieval people think of rotting corpses? Surely seeing a lively person turn into a decaying corpse must have been quite shocking - how did they rationalise this?
What makes you think they kept people around until they rotted? In the Middle Ages, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all buried their dead -- and since embalming was not a thing, pretty quickly. Some of the explanations for stories of vampires hinge on people being unfamiliar with how a body decays after rigor mortis. The Romans tended to cremate their dead.
@@christosvoskresye Yeah, I'm sure they did. But they were aware of what happened to a body when it wasn't buried or cremated. What did they think caused the rotting?
@@christosvoskresye accidents happen, and someone who died out by him or herself couldn't be buried until found. They could come to visit the person, and find them dead and bloated, so it could easily have been a known fact what happened to a body after the person died and wasn't buried right away. Accidents, disease, even murder, would not be unheard of, all of which could easily result in an unburied body days after death.
Carry on,please! This stuff is great! A superduper wish? A specialmilo on sapiens,neanderthal,heidelbergensis roots! Cheers🙂 Bra gjort! Alltid intressant!
I'm no fan of the flash flood theory either to be honest. A flood so powerful it can wipe out whole groups of animals but leaves them intact nice and neatly next to each other. I'm not convinced.
@@StefanMiloi mean a flash flood doesnt have to be a violent tsunami. The water can calmly rise and ruse and rise and just seeep you gently away. Unless youre on a hill its not going to nessisarily be rushing water. Just imagine its raining and then it keeps raining and it does so for days and days and creates ponds that start to join up...then it drowns you and your family friends and then the rain stops and the water level drops and there you are in your kitchen with your family but dead. It doesnt have to be swooshing you against rocks or something.
Very cool video on early hominids and the dead, it makes sense at the first site that the bodies were left deliberately, that alone is fascinating and 7m2 is not that big space. I would have thought the predator would have spread the bodies about in a bigger space. Hills certainly can be boggy, been on a few, but like you, I'm doubtful on the bog theory. Cut marks on bones of the early hominids are always very interesting thought and subject. Enjoyed this and strangely was the 2nd video in a row I've seen someone with a hot flask, hope it was coffee? Nice to see this channel growing and keep up the great work Stefan...
@@StefanMilo Always a pleasure to watch your content and it also makes me want to improve the content which we are filming. Oh yeah, you can not beat a good brew of tea.
@@steveclark4291 dang, we are nearly neighbors! I am just barely across the state line into Missouri, myself, around halfway way between KC and Joplin, LOL! For a video that reaches the whole world, to find a person within easy driving distance, and not from a big city, sorta skews the odds, I think! Anyway, just had to say hello, neighbor. 😁😄😎
So what happened after apes spend hours with the corps? did they just leave the corpse, where it was dropped or did they perform some sort of covering the corps?
They just left it where it was. The biologists returned a couple of days later and an animal (probably the leopard) had come and eaten half of it. There was another description in the book of a young chimpanzee dying and it's mother carefully placed it into a thick bush. Did she do that deliberately to hide/cover the body? It's hard to say.
Was looking to see if someone asked *this*. Am glad Stefan saw yours @Lord Hapu, and answered. @Oliver Smith suggestion is appreciated too. Wouldn't make it sense in a dangerous environment where your own king isn't that many!?
Wouldn't it be dangerous to leave a body near the living space of the group, where it would attract predators? Could early hominins have started depositing bodies somewhere safer and eventually developed rituals around that practice?
Interesting, I haven't before no. I just looked it up though, that would make a great video topic. Thanks for watching my humble little vids Tecto, I always appreciate it.
Stefan, I just recently 'discovered' your little lectures ans I adore them (well, most of it). Now I would like so much to hear from you what might possibly the reason behind all these Naledi's found together behind a very tiny entrance in the back of a cave in Sterkfontein (SA)? And, a second question, has it ever occured to scientists that hominids feeling their time was up did go look for a quiet spot, as cats and other mammals so often do...?
I have given most of my pet dogs 'surface burials'. I had fifty dogs over time and don't recall burying any in the ground, although three I enclosed in sand-filled stone mounds.
In many places, that could be construed as illegal, as well as unsafe. I must assume you are rural, or have access to land that is rural. I am rural, too, but have always buried pets if they passed at home, and cremated pets that passed at the vet. I never really wanted to draw in predators that would smell the carcass, or even scavengers, which often carry dangerous germs here, to have them anywhere close to my remaining pets OR livestock.
Coming from a Campbellian point of view, I think that hunting rituals and death rituals grew up in relation to each other. This was a very interesting video.
If the flies were so bothersome to the chimpanzees that they would continue to swat them away would it be safe to say the act of burial of the dead in a more advanced early primate hint at some empathy for the deceased to keep the pests off their friend?
The cache makes perfect sense... if hominids haven't figured out burial yet, dropping the bodies in a pit used for nothing else protects the bodies from large predators (don't want to attract cave lions), isolates the stink-putrefaction-flies-maggots, and the containment would allow individuals to visit and "pay their respects" if that was a thing then. There are probably a lot of other great reasons for doing the cache not occurring to me at the moment.
Yeah, nothing against the video, but I didnt want to know any of this. Now I'm just creeped out by our cousins haha But for real Stefan, great video. Your subjects are always unique and interesting, although I can start seeing a type ;)
@@SumerianRoses because he has a favorite hypothesis, you assume he is on drugs? I would more suspect you of mirroring, accusing another of doing what you actually do.
If I remember correctly, there is a tribe that cuts the meat off the bones of their dead and bury both. I far as I remember they did dig the bones up and cleaned them 10 years afterwards before reburying them again...
One question I have, which I am sure people have tried to answer, is whether animals realize death is permanent and irreversible. For example, a friend of mine has a basset hound and had a cat who recently passed away. She found the cat half in and half out of a little cubbyhole, with the basset hound lying next to the body, seemingly guarding it. Over the next few days, the hound would return to the cubbyhole and bark. To me this sounds as though the dog is trying to draw my friends attention to the fact that the cat (with which he had been on good terms and had known for a decade) was missing, in the expectation that she could somehow make everything right again.
@@twirlipofthemists3201 I'm talking about nature, not the supernatural. The basset hound probably has no real conception of death, which he has seen only once before (another cat), and I'm not really sure how much he saw of that instance. I suspect that "what death is" has to be learned through observation, rather than being an instinctive knowledge. (Knowing when it is safe to eat a prey animal probably is at least partly instinctive, but such animals were probably only considered food, not "alive" in the same sense as the actual (or even potential) members of one's own pack.) Very likely he thinks my friend could solve the problem of the absent cat much as she solves the problem of the empty food bowl -- he doesn't know how, exactly, but it works, so he has no reason to do more than draw her attention to the problem. I suspect if the hound were to come across the cat walking around today just as if nothing had happened, he would not be surprised, much less alarmed -- he would just run up as if to say, "Hey! Long time no see!"
The chimps living in the wild, on the other hand, have probably seen a lot of death. Come to think of it, my dad's dogs apparently go into mourning when they see a visitor leave with suitcases. They have learned that the suitcase means the visitor will not be back for a long time.
Hmmmmm. I been watching a few of your vids Stefan during this 2020 year of the COVID. Interesting stuff. I always like early history. Didn't know your surname was so long. I seen your attempts at pronouncing hungarian place names, how do you go at pronouncing your own surname, it looks slavic in origin. Any way ciao for now.
Using the word “know” is quite a tricky way to describe it, let alone saying that they “understand” something and using it for death is a wild stretch. Even for humans we have a certain difficulty to describe what really means "to know" something (we have our approximation under Positivism, but it also has its limits). Chimps don’t handle concepts (not in the way we do as to use such terms); they may FEEL something is wrong, unusual, strange, that something demands the attention of the group or at least those whose hierarchy puts them into a position of intervention. But they do not know what death means, only that a member of the group has stopped behaving in recognizable way and are trying to comfort it (and stopping younger members from troubling it) but they don’t have more emotions than the direct one related to immediate events. They don’t understand death neither conceptually nor temporarily. This also explain why sometimes they drag corpses (especially if they are of infants) as if they were simply sleep and unable to respond, their animal social bonds to the subject that now is merely a corpse doesn’t stop existing, internally in them, there is little to no translation into “knowing” or “understanding” but their reaction change because: the member stop behaving how it is expected from it after while, it doesn’t give the signs that calls for empathy or help from the group either, it doesn’t even try to follow the group, it begins to give offensive signs (rotten smell) that usually is only overlooked when the bond is too strong (infants upon dead mother, or mothers upon dead offspring). The group stop caring an forgets the not reacting member but they don’t understand its death (some infants even die while attached to their dead mothers but this is more understandable).
Lol I love it how you say your profs didn’t remember you. None of mine did I’m sure besides the handful I had to desperately accost for help to not flunk out of college.
To me the most likely way to express what early burial meant was they were trying to hide the body from predators the same as they would have done when the being was alive. Anything most abstract may be missing the main point.
Ants place their dead in the trash pile and there is a lot of fuss over how this is done. Regular trash is just dumped, including other dead insect parts. But dead ants are moved over and over. Also ant will groom sick or dead ants for hours to try to revive them, only giving up when there is no response for a long time.
I’m pretty curious about why there were at least 15 Homo Naledi in the Rising Star cave system and nothing else. Apparently Dr. Berger has been teasing recently that they made some major discovery about it recently. I hope it’s how they got in there.
I so appreciate the story of the Chimps. There's historical trend to minimize homonid "culture' and even human history that seems to stem from the notion that in any number of ways "we moderns are not like "them", but we are a lot like "them".
I wonder if these cave burials may also be distantly remembered in the early myths about the underworld being the land of the dead. Like styx and all that jazz.
Just a reflection: If flash floods, bogs or other natural causes can lead to multiple bodies ending up in a small area like that, we should also see such sites but with non-hominid species like deer or baboons or whatever. If we don't see sites like that in any other species than hominids It would certainly give more weight to the idea that other hominids put them there.
If nothing else... Throughout history, we've had this back and forth on whether having bodies away from the group is good or bad. I'm not sure if our early ancestors would know that it could carry disease. In fact, whenever cannibalism comes up, my first thought is "uh oh, prion disease". But I have no doubt they knew when someone was dead at the very least
If you found this interesting, then consider subscribing. Lots more videos on the stone age to come! I'm always trying to improve my videos and I only use academic sources.
ruclips.net/channel/UCZ9jWH_8tJ-Nmaj8dSQdEYA?
Yeah it has already! I know I've seen all your notifications, I appreciate you checking them out, glad you found them interesting.
So cheerful about "the Stone Age to come." I guess if we're going to have videos we'd better make them now.
One question is the time period of the disposition. Over a long time period or a short one ? Mostly at certain times ? Why so few bodies if it was a just general action for all the dead ? So many questions.
Yup very good questions. With regards to the site in Ethiopia I think they came from the same layer so presumably deposited in a small period of time. As for the sima in Spain it seems that this was going on for a much longer period of time. That's my understanding of the sites anyhow.
@@StefanMilo interesting.
You would think the practice of carrying your dead child around even when it's rotting would end pretty quickly if disease was a factor. Yikes.
How else do you build up immunity to dead children?
And now you know better
You'd think so. Perhaps Chimpanzee mother's are so possessive because at any moment their child might be eaten by an alpha male having a temper tantrum.
Maybe it's to stop the alpha male trying to shag her right away. I mean, who would wanna shag _that_ nasty thing?
It could be hypothesised that it serves a biological function. The males generally won't try to mate with females with kids, because giving birth and raising kids takes a certain amount of time to recover from. Even in Humans, if a woman is breastfeeding, she tends to be infertile (but not always! So don't trust that as a contraceptive, kids!). But she needs time to recover from giving birth, heal, and her body chemistry to reset and be ready for reproduction again - to come into 'season'.
For Humans it's about six months.
So maybe she's not even really thinking about it. Maybe she doesn't even feel grief. Maybe it's just biological programming telling her to carry the dead baby around until she's in season again.
It's funny that you say that. In another account of death amongst chimpanzees I read, the males basically reacted in a sex frenzy. For some reason, every male in this group mated with one specific female, like 14 males all in all. This female was not the mother of the dead baby but nonetheless, interesting response to death lol.
"I don't know who will find this video interesting but I certainly do"
I think this is the key to great youtube channels like this. Just cracking on with whatever you find interesting in the hope that others out there will also be into it. I've only recently found this channel but I'm mega into it.
The cause of death could have a strong effect on how bodies were disposed of. Maybe they ate their dead opponents but handled their own dead differently?
Good point!
or ate their loved ones! could be anything
Can’t wait for this dude to blow up
I shall name my first Lamborghini "Lucy".
The answer to "We asked 100 people to name 10 things you should not say in the middle east. Name one!"
Allah Akbar
He’s gonna be at your birthday
I think you may well be correct. You apply the most logical solutions to illogical problems. I saw the cave of the bones and have collected tools from early hominids since the 1980s. I do confess that I am more of a historian of the Medieval world than an anthropologist. Still, I fed my mind by sitting in on lectures from Dr. Spencer while he was at UT and shared my own pictures of myself with SAN people. I was too young and dumb to realize how hugely important they would become twenty years later with the Genome Project. I like your videos very much and if I could ask you one question, it would be this:
How come we have so many images of the different kinds of hominids and scarcely any of extinct primates? What did the first Orang look like? What about the mountain gorilla? Where are their ancestors? Am I missing something?
I think that just reflects our selfish nature in a way. I'm sure there are fossils of extinct primates out there I just haven't looked into it. I'm certain it attracts less research dollars than human related projects.
@@StefanMilo Stephan, your videos are amazing. There are many other videos out there from those who mean well, but frankly talk 'over the heads' of most students. You have a wonderful gift of taking complex themes and making them relative for people watching. We need more people like you.
I began my university study in Genetics in London. I wanted to study human origins and the future of cloning. But I was an American stoner kid who played baseball, liked to chase girls, and nearly aced the SAT and ACT.
The culture shock and my inability to adapt nearly cost me everything. I failed Organic Chemistry. I absolutely had no idea what to do. One course I had was in Pandemics and when we got to the middle ages, my professor came alive with passion. How was I to know that the Black Death of 1348-50 would bring out so much passion for the history and culture of Europe?
I survived only because I changed my course of study to Medieval History. But I never lost my love for Anthropology, both physical and cultural.
I took whatever opportunity I had to travel. And although I was far more naive then, I did get to visit the SAN people and other indigenous tribes in Africa. I support Survival International - and although I am not always so convinced that their views are correct, I believe their intentions are in the right places.
Here is a link to a story of humanity that I wrote, and is continuing to grow and evolve with every new discovery. Like you, my love of human origins compliments the other areas of my background. This is still waiting to be edited for publication, so if there is a grammatical or syntax error within, forgive me!
www.robertbluestein.com/single-post/2017/02/10/First-Contact---Neanderthals-Meet-Homo-Sapiens-Part-III
In addition to Stefan's explanation, anything that goes on in a tropical forest is less likely to leave fossils which probably makes researching orangutan evolution challenging
I’ve asked that question about many different supposedly ancient species? You will always hear one animal evolved from this ancient animal? Ok so where are the different variations in between? You see pictures of what a manatee for example evolved from? We know what they look like now? What were they at the halfway point? The experts may be correct? I believe in evolution but I have questions? Lol!
I'll be 64 in July, and hominid evolution, and pre-history generally, have fascinated me ever since my older sister bought me my first dinosaur book for Christmas in 1965.
I love your videos, Stefan. I find them both intetesting and quite relaxing!
Weighing up a combination of archaeological; paleontological; genetic, current human behavioural; and current ape behavioural evidence; is both fiendishly tricky, and wonderfully enjoyable and fulfilling, all at the same time. Love it.
Keep the videos coming Stefan, and thanks so much!
Nigel, Scotland
I've worked in Search and Rescue, that includes body recovery, after several floods. I promise you that it is perfectly natural for groups of bodies to settle together. They usually orient themselves just as these individuals found as the waters retract and the pool dries. This looks very familiar to me.
You look like you always have some secret joke only you know. It's pretty endearing tbqh, good videos thanks
He looks like he hit the bong to me...😜
Ya, that's just the stoner look.
I'm glad project Odysseus helped me find your channel you do good work
project Odysseus is the best cross channel collaboration since the band TwentyTen teamed up like 6-8 years ago. This is one of my favorite collaborations of all time =3
Same
Super interesting stuff about the chimpanzees! Had no idea. Great vid!
I know, in the book paleolithic origins.... there's lots of other accounts of how chimpanzees react. It's really interesting.
I wonder if Bonobos have been recorded doing similar things. They have fairly recently started hunting with spears. Something Chimpanzees don't do. It reminds me of the cave in South Africa filled with Homo Naladi. Quick question,. Would those early hominids have the ability to use the plant Chimpanzee fire to light their way into the depths of that cave?
Another possibility for the antecessor site is that they were preyed upon by another hominid.
Yeah definitely possible!
@@StefanMilo Ancient serial killer? Possible.....
Quest for Fire
A human buffalo jump?
I had that thought! That's my favourite theory...
I have been delving into your vids since RUclips popped it in my itinerary . Fantastic way to deliver various hypothesis. You do not overcomplicate things so much to the point of overload... and you are willing to say "I don't know" instead of trying to convince anyone of your particular premise. Rather refreshing.... thank you very much. I expect to learn a lot. Have a great week and please.. may you and yours remain Covid 19 free.
That subscriber count is creeping up mate. Nice work.
Yeah little by little!
You're Uni experience studying history sounds similar to mine. 11 years later and a Masters degree down Im training yo be a History/Humanities teacher in Secondary.
Keep up the good work dude, I've been recommending your videos to students across all Humanities subjects (yesterday your Shanidar I case to someone in an R.E lesson on eutenasia when talking about care and compassion
Love your narrative style Stefano. It is so smooth and has a soothing quality. Damn good videos.. it's difficult to point out my favourite one..because i like them all !!
when humans draw lines and then start shouting at each other, it is very reminiscent of two opposing troops of chimps are hooting and screaming at each other xD
Thank you, George Soros
@@vlaw7103 funny how you went that direction. Does prove the comment in a very clear way, though, so, thanks for that, I guess.
Milo, really like the way you present this information, so incisive, with the need to ask more questions, that's what science is all about.
This is absolutely fascinating. I've been watching a few of your videos on and off over the past few weeks, and I'm careful who I subscribe to, because I don't want to unsubscribe later if the rest of the channel doesn't jive (shout out to Survive the Jive) but damn, bro, every video you do is so well-constructed and easy to watch and listen to. No harsh jump cuts, no blaring sound effects, just respectful educated delivery of academic considerations in the field. You earned yourself a permanent subscriber, man. Also, the video you did about spears where you stabbed the squirrel toy, that was funny lmao. Keep this up, dude, this slow and steady thing is how you earn forever fans.
Survive the Jive is a great channel as is this.
This is one of the most interesting videos you have ever done.
I totally love the videos of Stefan Milosavljevich. So informative and thought provoking.
Amazing ending to the video. What an awesome channel Stefan!
Hvala drugar sto se bavis ovako zanimljivim temama. Pozdrav iz Srbije :)
You sir are a treasure good sir! Always loving your work both new and old!
Love your videos, man!
Final example suggests some sort of convergence between latrine habit and burial habit. Smell perhaps? A cave site concentrates the smell during decomposition, but otherwise restricts it from spreading in every direction per winds.
Love your insight .......I really enjoy learning from your knowledge
Real clear evidence of the presence of early deliberate rituals involving the dead. Nice shout out to your prof!
Wonderful channel. Thx and keep up the good work.
Great video on an underdiscussed topic. Subscribed!
Thanks man, happy to have you!
This is wonderful stuff! As a writer and an amateur psychologist, I'm extremely interested in the reasons things are done, whether by humans or non-humans. This explores a middle ground that I rarely see.
Dude nice! Another video. Love the content bro!
Thanks man, I could talk about the stone age all day!
It would be cool if you created a video on modern and historical burial practices as a sort of overview of the way humans in particular have been known to mourn their dead. This could be appropriate given the pandemic we're dealing with and how often our society has had to grapple with the grief of death in recent years. You could make parallels to evidence from our hominin ancestors throughout, stuff like that. It would be a really great video and a way to diversify your topics to include contemporary society!
Best RUclips site ever! Thanks for all your research. Have you watched any of Dr. Barnharts, Great Courses series? Really good stuff on ancient North America. Also I had no idea Dave Mathews was so interested in human evolution?
No mention of rising star cave in South Africa, a very interesting mystery. Loved the video. I hope you continue to make videos like this.
There are SO many interesting sites around the world that it would take days to just touch upon each one.
Wonderful video! So informative!
I'd love to see a video where you take on the new findings of homo naledi, which is pretty compelling evidence for hominoid burials I think
This video brought some interesting thought in my mind. We discovered a lots fossil of the species's between us homo sapiens and the last common ancestors of Chimps and us. But what about the species leading to Chimps? Can the study of our own evolution ever be complete without a complementary study of Chimp evolution?
Only just managed to catch up with this one. Excellent, as usual.
for some reason your video gave me a appetite.
Just find your local hominid burger place!
Even elephants are into this stuff.
Sure dolphins and whales as well.
I enjoyed this video.
Thanks.
V informative & clearly narrated.
I wish there was more content like this
Your thuroughly rational presentation considering multiple possibilities without leaning bias is scientific and easy to listen to. Leading the topic with the chimpanzee behavioral model is so appropriate. Thank for your good work.
Thanks, I appreciate you saying that!
On a tangentially relate topic, I've actually been wondering lately - what did ancient and medieval people think of rotting corpses? Surely seeing a lively person turn into a decaying corpse must have been quite shocking - how did they rationalise this?
I have no idea, that's a good question though.
What makes you think they kept people around until they rotted? In the Middle Ages, Christians, Jews, and Muslims all buried their dead -- and since embalming was not a thing, pretty quickly. Some of the explanations for stories of vampires hinge on people being unfamiliar with how a body decays after rigor mortis. The Romans tended to cremate their dead.
@@christosvoskresye Yeah, I'm sure they did. But they were aware of what happened to a body when it wasn't buried or cremated. What did they think caused the rotting?
@@christosvoskresye accidents happen, and someone who died out by him or herself couldn't be buried until found. They could come to visit the person, and find them dead and bloated, so it could easily have been a known fact what happened to a body after the person died and wasn't buried right away. Accidents, disease, even murder, would not be unheard of, all of which could easily result in an unburied body days after death.
Carry on,please! This stuff is great!
A superduper wish? A specialmilo on sapiens,neanderthal,heidelbergensis roots! Cheers🙂 Bra gjort! Alltid intressant!
The tables have turned. Now I'm hitting the bongs and you're the lecturer.
Great combination of intelligence and humour. Brilliant channel.
@6:00 unmodified bones, but a flash flood. From deduction, they must have strongest bones around or a flash flood didn't do that.
I'm no fan of the flash flood theory either to be honest. A flood so powerful it can wipe out whole groups of animals but leaves them intact nice and neatly next to each other. I'm not convinced.
@@StefanMiloi mean a flash flood doesnt have to be a violent tsunami. The water can calmly rise and ruse and rise and just seeep you gently away. Unless youre on a hill its not going to nessisarily be rushing water. Just imagine its raining and then it keeps raining and it does so for days and days and creates ponds that start to join up...then it drowns you and your family friends and then the rain stops and the water level drops and there you are in your kitchen with your family but dead. It doesnt have to be swooshing you against rocks or something.
So I watched this way later than I wanted :( BUT the wait will have been worth it tbh awesome work, thanks!
Thanks I appreciate you watching at any time!
Great video !
Very cool video on early hominids and the dead, it makes sense at the first site that the bodies were left deliberately, that alone is fascinating and 7m2 is not that big space. I would have thought the predator would have spread the bodies about in a bigger space. Hills certainly can be boggy, been on a few, but like you, I'm doubtful on the bog theory. Cut marks on bones of the early hominids are always very interesting thought and subject. Enjoyed this and strangely was the 2nd video in a row I've seen someone with a hot flask, hope it was coffee? Nice to see this channel growing and keep up the great work Stefan...
Can't make a video without a cup of tea! Thanks for watching guys I appreciate it.
@@StefanMilo Always a pleasure to watch your content and it also makes me want to improve the content which we are filming. Oh yeah, you can not beat a good brew of tea.
@@StefanMilo oh yes got to have tea ! Lol even if I live in south central Kansas of the US !
@@steveclark4291 dang, we are nearly neighbors! I am just barely across the state line into Missouri, myself, around halfway way between KC and Joplin, LOL! For a video that reaches the whole world, to find a person within easy driving distance, and not from a big city, sorta skews the odds, I think!
Anyway, just had to say hello, neighbor. 😁😄😎
So what happened after apes spend hours with the corps? did they just leave the corpse, where it was dropped or did they perform some sort of covering the corps?
They just left it where it was. The biologists returned a couple of days later and an animal (probably the leopard) had come and eaten half of it. There was another description in the book of a young chimpanzee dying and it's mother carefully placed it into a thick bush. Did she do that deliberately to hide/cover the body? It's hard to say.
I suppose a lingering behavior and warding off of flies could save the lives of many who'd only been knocked unconscious, and woke hours later.
So they basically mourned the loss but have nothing special for the remaining hull?
Was looking to see if someone asked *this*. Am glad Stefan saw yours @Lord Hapu, and answered. @Oliver Smith suggestion is appreciated too. Wouldn't make it sense in a dangerous environment where your own king isn't that many!?
Wouldn't it be dangerous to leave a body near the living space of the group, where it would attract predators? Could early hominins have started depositing bodies somewhere safer and eventually developed rituals around that practice?
Excellent, thank you! Your cemetery comment was hilarious 😁.
Stefan, have you heard of the Red Lady of Paviland? Fascinating if you fancy a look.
Interesting, I haven't before no. I just looked it up though, that would make a great video topic. Thanks for watching my humble little vids Tecto, I always appreciate it.
Dobar video, Stefane!
Stefan, I just recently 'discovered' your little lectures ans I adore them (well, most of it). Now I would like so much to hear from you what might possibly the reason behind all these Naledi's found together behind a very tiny entrance in the back of a cave in Sterkfontein (SA)? And, a second question, has it ever occured to scientists that hominids feeling their time was up did go look for a quiet spot, as cats and other mammals so often do...?
Hadar. Possible lighting strike?
I have given most of my pet dogs 'surface burials'. I had fifty dogs over time and don't recall burying any in the ground, although three I enclosed in sand-filled stone mounds.
In many places, that could be construed as illegal, as well as unsafe. I must assume you are rural, or have access to land that is rural. I am rural, too, but have always buried pets if they passed at home, and cremated pets that passed at the vet. I never really wanted to draw in predators that would smell the carcass, or even scavengers, which often carry dangerous germs here, to have them anywhere close to my remaining pets OR livestock.
Thanks for all the great vids!
Thanks, glad you like them!
Great topic. Subscribed.
The ufo guy! You crack me up!
Very interested!! Can't wait to see more.
Thanks!
I’m not sure if it was intended, but I liked the what happened at site 13 reference.
Not deliberate at all. What's site 13?
Stefan Milo It’s an SCP case simply called “What happened to site 13?” and thank you for noticing me Senpai.
Coming from a Campbellian point of view, I think that hunting rituals and death rituals grew up in relation to each other. This was a very interesting video.
If the flies were so bothersome to the chimpanzees that they would continue to swat them away would it be safe to say the act of burial of the dead in a more advanced early primate hint at some empathy for the deceased to keep the pests off their friend?
That was fascinating!
The cache makes perfect sense... if hominids haven't figured out burial yet, dropping the bodies in a pit used for nothing else protects the bodies from large predators (don't want to attract cave lions), isolates the stink-putrefaction-flies-maggots, and the containment would allow individuals to visit and "pay their respects" if that was a thing then. There are probably a lot of other great reasons for doing the cache not occurring to me at the moment.
Yeah, nothing against the video, but I didnt want to know any of this. Now I'm just creeped out by our cousins haha
But for real Stefan, great video. Your subjects are always unique and interesting, although I can start seeing a type ;)
Lol deffo, lots more stone age stuff to come.
We're cheering from the monkey gallery. We promise not to give you any crap. The word is out: No throwing.
I got excited at 10:30 when you said “too rap this video...” not what i was hoping
I believe the position in which tho bodies were found would be key to tell the ritual from the accidental accumulation of corpses!
actsnfacts how much meth are you on?
@@SumerianRoses because he has a favorite hypothesis, you assume he is on drugs? I would more suspect you of mirroring, accusing another of doing what you actually do.
Just stumbled across your channel, absolutely love it! So fucking interesting!! Keep it up bro
Thanks I appreciate that!
You should find the work done on Homo Naledi very interesting!
If I remember correctly, there is a tribe that cuts the meat off the bones of their dead and bury both. I far as I remember they did dig the bones up and cleaned them 10 years afterwards before reburying them again...
Fascinating stuff.
Milo, you're the best at getting to the crux of the matter.
In sima de los uesos, a handaxe or biface has been found that has never served for anything and was apparently made to be disposed in the burials...
I saw a video about that. Didn't Heidelbergensis make it?
@@OmegaWolf747 it seems that heildelbergensis made it..
One question I have, which I am sure people have tried to answer, is whether animals realize death is permanent and irreversible. For example, a friend of mine has a basset hound and had a cat who recently passed away. She found the cat half in and half out of a little cubbyhole, with the basset hound lying next to the body, seemingly guarding it. Over the next few days, the hound would return to the cubbyhole and bark. To me this sounds as though the dog is trying to draw my friends attention to the fact that the cat (with which he had been on good terms and had known for a decade) was missing, in the expectation that she could somehow make everything right again.
For that matter, how many humans really grasp it?
Too true!
@@twirlipofthemists3201 I'm talking about nature, not the supernatural.
The basset hound probably has no real conception of death, which he has seen only once before (another cat), and I'm not really sure how much he saw of that instance. I suspect that "what death is" has to be learned through observation, rather than being an instinctive knowledge. (Knowing when it is safe to eat a prey animal probably is at least partly instinctive, but such animals were probably only considered food, not "alive" in the same sense as the actual (or even potential) members of one's own pack.) Very likely he thinks my friend could solve the problem of the absent cat much as she solves the problem of the empty food bowl -- he doesn't know how, exactly, but it works, so he has no reason to do more than draw her attention to the problem.
I suspect if the hound were to come across the cat walking around today just as if nothing had happened, he would not be surprised, much less alarmed -- he would just run up as if to say, "Hey! Long time no see!"
The chimps living in the wild, on the other hand, have probably seen a lot of death.
Come to think of it, my dad's dogs apparently go into mourning when they see a visitor leave with suitcases. They have learned that the suitcase means the visitor will not be back for a long time.
Hmmmmm. I been watching a few of your vids Stefan during this 2020 year of the COVID. Interesting stuff. I always like early history. Didn't know your surname was so long. I seen your attempts at pronouncing hungarian place names, how do you go at pronouncing your own surname, it looks slavic in origin. Any way ciao for now.
Upvote for including sources
Thanks!
Using the word “know” is quite a tricky way to describe it, let alone saying that they “understand” something and using it for death is a wild stretch. Even for humans we have a certain difficulty to describe what really means "to know" something (we have our approximation under Positivism, but it also has its limits). Chimps don’t handle concepts (not in the way we do as to use such terms); they may FEEL something is wrong, unusual, strange, that something demands the attention of the group or at least those whose hierarchy puts them into a position of intervention. But they do not know what death means, only that a member of the group has stopped behaving in recognizable way and are trying to comfort it (and stopping younger members from troubling it) but they don’t have more emotions than the direct one related to immediate events. They don’t understand death neither conceptually nor temporarily. This also explain why sometimes they drag corpses (especially if they are of infants) as if they were simply sleep and unable to respond, their animal social bonds to the subject that now is merely a corpse doesn’t stop existing, internally in them, there is little to no translation into “knowing” or “understanding” but their reaction change because: the member stop behaving how it is expected from it after while, it doesn’t give the signs that calls for empathy or help from the group either, it doesn’t even try to follow the group, it begins to give offensive signs (rotten smell) that usually is only overlooked when the bond is too strong (infants upon dead mother, or mothers upon dead offspring). The group stop caring an forgets the not reacting member but they don’t understand its death (some infants even die while attached to their dead mothers but this is more understandable).
I find it interesting. I do wonder why antessor isnt classified as Heidburgensis. Were they that morphologically different?
The idea that humans and chimps are related horrifies me. Thank god bonobos also exist.
The "elephant graveyard" of legend is, alas, just a legend, but they show somewhat similar behavior with their dead.
@Joe Blow Sure you have, buddy. Sure you have.
@@christosvoskresye I'd wager the comment you were replying to must have been an interesting one, LOL! Sadly, it no longer exists. 😄
@@MaryAnnNytowl Yeah, I'm wondering what that was about myself!
Lol I love it how you say your profs didn’t remember you. None of mine did I’m sure besides the handful I had to desperately accost for help to not flunk out of college.
To me the most likely way to express what early burial meant was they were trying to hide the body from predators the same as they would have done when the being was alive. Anything most abstract may be missing the main point.
Ants place their dead in the trash pile and there is a lot of fuss over how this is done. Regular trash is just dumped, including other dead insect parts. But dead ants are moved over and over.
Also ant will groom sick or dead ants for hours to try to revive them, only giving up when there is no response for a long time.
Another theory is lightning that could knock down a group of individuals so closely organized
Sheffield Uni represent!
I’m pretty curious about why there were at least 15 Homo Naledi in the Rising Star cave system and nothing else. Apparently Dr. Berger has been teasing recently that they made some major discovery about it recently. I hope it’s how they got in there.
I so appreciate the story of the Chimps. There's historical trend to minimize homonid "culture' and even human history that seems to stem from the notion that in any number of ways "we moderns are not like "them", but we are a lot like "them".
I wonder if these cave burials may also be distantly remembered in the early myths about the underworld being the land of the dead. Like styx and all that jazz.
Could be, or perhaps people exploring caves came across strange fossils?
@@StefanMilo good point. Ancient folk were just as aware of their ancestors as we are and found them equally mysterious.
Homo Naledi? Given where the bones were found deliberate burial has to be a possible explanation
Could you tell me the source of the study on the deceased chimp? I tried to find it but couldn't. Thanks.
Just a reflection: If flash floods, bogs or other natural causes can lead to multiple bodies ending up in a small area like that, we should also see such sites but with non-hominid species like deer or baboons or whatever. If we don't see sites like that in any other species than hominids It would certainly give more weight to the idea that other hominids put them there.
i really love your videos
Very interesting.
I'm glad somebody thinks so! Thanks
If nothing else... Throughout history, we've had this back and forth on whether having bodies away from the group is good or bad. I'm not sure if our early ancestors would know that it could carry disease. In fact, whenever cannibalism comes up, my first thought is "uh oh, prion disease". But I have no doubt they knew when someone was dead at the very least
Could the last one be the disposal of enemies after a battle?