The Neandertal Burial That Taught Us About Humanity
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- Опубликовано: 30 янв 2023
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If we can see ourselves in the way our ancient cousins dealt with death…what else could we have in common?
Thanks to Julio Lacerda ( / juliotheartist ) for the excellent reconstruction of Shanidar IV!
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They cared for their sick and disabled, so I feel its not ridiculous to think that they very much buried their dead. They had compassion, surely they wanted to say goodbye to their loved ones and probably wanted to stop carnivores from eating the bodies of their family members.
That's not the question, however. A lot of social animals mourn their dead, like elephants or the great apes, the question here is a about symbolism, about ceremony.
Did they mourn their dead? Of course they did. Now, did they believe in an afterlife? Did they try to commune with their deceased ones, or perhaps honor their ancestors? I like to believe they did, but that is what is in discussion.
Elephants do that too, you know (care for the sick and disable, and dead).
Trey the Explainer's video on how past people cared for disabled loved ones was so touching and a great reminder that they weren't savages or dumb species without compassion. Highly recommend if you haven't seen it before!
Although Neanderthals are a different species of human we are very similar genetically.
@@olafelsberry420 to be fair there was interbreeding so we do have Neanderthal relatives, although the percentage is low and depends on ethnicity from what I understand.
Sometimes, I’m struck by the fact that we are the last kind of humans but for years, we weren’t alone, and our long dead ancestors cousins were as human as we are now. This is one of those times.
It could have been a total fluke we survived.
@@nosuchthing8 luck does play into species survival.
Of course our big brains and excelling at killing other animals helped.
That's something I think about sometimes too. Although Neanderthals and Denisovans aren't as dead as previously thought, are they? It's interesting to realize that some branches on the evolutionary tree re-converge somewhere down the line.
I've been reading books on our ancestors that refer to homo sapiens as "human" and Neanderthals and Denisovans as not, but the more we learn about them, the more that feels... wrong.
If and when we can we should bring them back.
Regardless of the possible intentional burial of the dead, I find it much more meaningful that Shanidar 1 was a disabled elderly Neanderthal, meaning that the others chose to take care of them. Compassion is a beautiful thing.
Yes: that, we can be sure about.
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said.”
We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.
- Ira Byock.
the guy from Best Ever Food Review Show mentioned it on JRE
@@sonofamortician Margaret Mead also lived with and studied primitive tribes in New Guinea and I read her description of the daily activities of the women and young children. They would go out daily with their baskets and digging sticks and forage for roots, fruits, eggs, turtles. They’d weave nets for catching fish and birds. Collect firewood. This group is what kept the tribe fed with a range of foods, not waiting to be handed an animal by the hunters, all the while starving quietly such as seems to be suggested by androcentric authors.
@@sonofamortician Interestingly, at my alma mater there was a (very old) gorilla skeleton on display when I was a student. The text at the display pointed out that the gorilla had a healed broken femur that at the time of death (by hunter) was fully functional. Society may start with broken legs, but it isn't limited to humans.
Let’s also think on corvids. Crows and ravens, primarily. They do understand death. They seem to understand some bits of symbolism.
My own example: Tikka, a magpie that adopted me, stayed with me for two years. Through a messy breakup, and moving three times. I never forced him. I only explained where I was going. And he’d follow me! This past summer, he died. Looked like he’d been in a fight and succumbed to his injuries. The day he died, he’d come to the backyard of the house my friends and I are renting. All day, there was a large gathering of mixed crows and ravens, chasing away cats, other birds, and my roommates from something. When I got home from work, I went to go talk to the corvids… they all took off, revealing that they had been guarding Tikka’s body.
I buried him, and left a few shiny coins with him. Just… a few things I knew he liked. The next day, there were twigs and a couple of dandelions on the little grave. Deliberately placed there, and not by me. I can only guess these were from Tikka’s bird-friends. They’d seen me bury him, and add a few small things that held meaning. They may have picked those flowers and twigs by luck, but they were not plants in our yard. They had to bring those items from somewhere else, and place them deliberately on Tikka’s grave
Thank you so much for sharing that experience.
... wow ...
That needs investigation. Without killing a bunch of corvids, please!
Wow that’s fascinating! Corvids are _extremely_ intelligent, we don’t give them anywhere near enough credit!
That was a very moving, fascinating and enlightening tale. Thank you for sharing it, and though I don't know how long it's been since Tikka's death, I'm sorry for your loss.
I saved a blackbird who was stunned by a window. I righted him and his wife kept a close eye on me at about 2 feet distance. I talked to her and stabilized him upright in a safe area. After that, I was forever cool with the local blackbird population. I believe they have those goods to you as a thank you for caring for their friend
I used to know someone who lived on old farmland (no longer worked) and kept a small menagerie: a few donkeys, dogs, cats, and other animals who mostly lived in the barn. She said that when one of the donkeys died, the vet encouraged her to leave the donkey's body out for a bit. All the other animals came by as a group and nudged at the dead animal, then stood around for a while. It made me think that recognizing a member of one's living group has died is a very basic thing across many species. I know elephants have funerals.
When we took our cat to the vet, our dog was first chill cause she was used to him leaving for a while but after he didn't come back for a few days she started looking for him. She does this when someone goes on a trip, too. When I brought him home after he didn't make it, I let her sniff him so she'd understand she doesn't need to wait around and look for him anymore. She didn't. She also seemed less energetic the next day but that could've been her reacting to my distress.
My sister passed away from cancer. Her beloved dog pined for her literally just wasted away from the grief. When you love an animal they're going to love you back. This is why I try very hard to be a vegetarian.
You forgot to tell the most interesting detail about the Kebara burial: the remains were found directly at the bottom of 20m layers of old campfires. This man was layed to rest, and then fires were lit over his grave time after time for thousands of years.
Wowsers, that's one hot fact.
Doesn't make sense, he would have to be done King for that kind of thing
@@dffndjdjd would there not be evidence of crushing in that case?
The campfires were probably signes of later occupation of the site rather than a commemoration of his death ^^'
Even pharaohs of Ancient Egypt didn't get worshiped for that much time, and their burial places were far more recognizable XD
Cave soil is thin when aging, idiot Archie’s dig 20 inches deep ruining the finds
It seems harder to doubt that they were capable of abstract thought than it is to believe it, imo. They're so closely related to us, and even our closest current relatives in creatures like chimps and bonobos aren't far off from all this, capable of creating art for no other reason than creating it, mourning death, expressing love for the sake of it, etc. - I don't see how Neanderthals and other similar hominids would be incapable of at LEAST that. Considering we interbred and interacted with them regularly enough that it exists in our DNA to this day for many, I think that chances that they weren't extremely similar to us are incredibly slim. We likely shared many practices - in fact I wouldn't be surprised if some of our modern day habits stem from things we developed in those ancient times right alongside other hominids.
Unfortunately neanderthal research, especially the stuff that tries to deny them intelligence, is in large part the last remnant of colonial era racist pseudo science. I've seen papers from not that long ago publishing whats basically phrenology and calling it science.
I like fireplaces when it's cold. I like to put my hands near the fire, and just...stare into the flames. It feels magic, I don't know how to put it.
That has to have been passed down from when we only had that to cook or for light at night.
I fully believe Neanderthals were just as "human" as us, just as intelligent and capable of sharing culture. After all, why else would there have been intermingling between humans and them?
That appears to be the current scientific consensus as well.
ye, it makes sense
Tho a lot of people also still imagine early homosapiens to be stupid and all that.
That caveman image is hard to remove from pop culture.
In fairness there are a lot of differences between Sapien and Neandertal communities that show us being more social then them. That doesn't mean they were less intelligent, just that they thought differently which makes them even more interesting.
Also if I've learned anything about Human history is that unfortunately we don't have to really care about eachother in order to "intermingle".
Archeologists have found homo sapiens neanderthal hybrids. As well as technological exchange between neanderthal and homo sapiens.
@@MH-up1xe arent most modern humans 1-3% neanderthal?
Elephants appear to "mourn" their dead and revisit bones. Wolves and dolphins appear to show agitation and "sadness" over the loss of group mates. Rescue dogs become depressed when they find too many dead people. Is it so far fetched that these hominids would mourn their dead and care for their bodies afterwards?
Something which is often overlooked is that burial in the ground is often difficult. The Australian Aborigines more often than not wrapped their dead in bark and placed them in trees. The reason is that their digging sticks were really only useful for digging up roots and tubers, not excavating graves, so burials were only used where the soil was soft and sandy. And what sort of soil existed in the caves referred to in this clip?
The transition from our earlier ancestors to modern day humans is a subject that has fascinated me ever since I came to understand that there were ancestors of ours that were of a different species. We carry Neanderthal DNA, so in a way, they never died out. There is something almost magical about that, I feel.
I have given you a thumbs up: I am 2.8% Neanderthal.
I'm pretty sure they were close to as intelligent as h. sapiens if they used to pair up into couples. True "race-mixing". Still, I can understand scientists preferring to have more tangible, direct evidence.
@daniell1483 - Neanderthals and Denisovans did not become extinct - they MERGED and are still here within us.
@@MossyMozart I guess you didn't read my OP. I mentioned that already.
Blake is such a fantastic host. All the Eons hosts are really excellent. I’m so glad this channel has continued to succeed. It’s well deserved
He sounds so excited about everything he talks about, makes the videos he hosts so much more interesting
The fine thread found at Abri du Maras also goes a long way to show how sophisticated our neanderthal brothers and sisters were. They're us. They're basically us. There is less and less room to imagine that they were any less.
Yup, I quite agree. As an anthropologist, I'm beginning to believe the Neanderthal never went extinct, their classification as separate from us has been a mistake made by earlier researchers.
@@backalleycqc4790 Yup, in this matter, I'm decidedly with the "Lumpers"
They're NOT us. They were much more human than us. I seriously think the 2% of Neanderthal genes we have is the only thing that makes us 'himan' at all - after all, if they did go extinct they probably went extinct just because they weren't built to run long distances and so-called 'wise man'🙄 (and by some Pæleologic professionals, 'homo sapien sapien'🙄🙄🙄) took advantage of that😔💔, but at very least they had forced them into hiding😔💔 and forced them to have to kill any homo 'sapien' that ventured too close out of self-preservation. Wisdom stems from intelligence, and wisdom can't blossom if the stem is rotten. And lack of compassion and need for apathetic dominance are two sure signs of lack of intelligence (though there are many other signs the 'homo sapien' is, indeed, NOT intelligent, yet alone sapien). When you can't even manage the basics of intelligence everything else means naught and I - that's why I'm always readily advocating and sticking up for other animals, saying they're much more intelligent than us.
@@backalleycqc4790 I mean they could still be different from us. Making them 'of us' could end up in a cul de sac where we still think we're kind of unique, but we include them now (are we not merciful, etc).
Neanderthals may yet be significantly different, but there doesn't seem to be the evidence to say that the difference is in cultural or technological nuance. Whatever their differences may or may not be, they share in our personhood, and share in a lot of our brilliance and creativity.
@@longline That's quite a thoughtful response, yup, I like your ideas.
This was one of the best "Well, we don't really know for sure" episodes. Lots of interesting details to chew on.
It's impossible for them to have survived to old age without help from friends. I can't think of any alternative.
I can’t understand why there would even be doubt that these earlier people would have emotional attachment with each other and be profoundly affected by their death, just as we do. Why would they be any different?
Does anyone know what apes do when one of their community dies? Do they just let them rot while walking around the scene of horror? Or do they do anything different than what they usually do? I ask because I don’t actually know what they do. But I assume that in the presence of one of their dead, that their behavior would likely change. And if it does change, it is likely an indication of some kind of emotional connection.
The question is not about emotional attachment, but their capacity to understand that one thing can represent another, to make connections between physically unrelated objects and phenomena, and possibly to imagine spirits, gods, and an afterlife. Many animals feel powerful emotional bonds. Any dog or cat owner can tell you that. But they can't (so far as we can tell) understand symbols or appreciate art as we do.
The idea that they put flowers around their dead is an attempt to mask the terrible odor of decomposition, at least temporarily while they pay their last respects prior to burial. Flowers were used because of their scent, and it’s all they had. Choosing to bury in a cave is to protect the dead from predators that would otherwise try to dig up the corpse to eat it. To my thinking these things are the actions of the practical and the compassionate. I happen to live in a rural area and have a lot of chickens and rabbits and predators try constantly to kill them, and occasionally do and sometimes I kill the predators and have to bury them. Often they are dug up by their own kind and eaten by them, so I come from a place of different perspectives and the practical.
@@Traderjoe No-one is arguing that they weren't clever or emotional, or at least not many nowadays. For a time their technology was more advanced than that of most _H. sapiens._ The question is whether they could think beyond the practical or emotional. Using flowers to mask the smell of rot (which probably wouldn't work) is practical. Using flowers in a ceremony with little or no regard to any pragmatic benefits indicates symbolic thinking. Many paleo-anthropologists want to identify some great difference in cognition between Modern Humans and Neanderthals, and so argue that Neanderthals weren't capable of the sort of thinking that would allow for ceremony, art, spirituality, _etc._ I assume that when you bury foxes or canines you just dig a hole deep enough and toss the body in. You probably don't go to any extra effort for impractical ceremonial or ritualistic reasons. Not many would argue anymore that Neanderthals were incapable of the former. The debate is whether they were capable of the latter.
@Johanobesus Fatjohn
Plenty of humans don't appreciate art. Conversely, I have never met an animal that didn't like music. My cat was partial to Baroque chamber music and sonatas.
@@aninewforest Appreciating lovely sounds is not indicative of the capacity for symbolic thought. It's not about appreciating this or that art form.
I'm inclined to think that, "funeral" is a better word than "burial" for what is being described here, in several respects. It seems to be a much better description for a symbolism-laden, ritualized burial ceremony like the one being hypothesized: a Neanderthal FUNERAL.
P.S. There is no juicier "Stegosaurus tale" than the invention of the Thagomizer.
You do have to wonder if like the late Dr Simmons, real life Neanderthals found and shared fossils with each other. "Hey look at this cool rock!" just feels like a universal human experience.
I so wish these were full length documentaries! This is SUCH a fascinating topic
send this comment to the top... please, long form videos
comment if u agree
I imagine that being a paleontologist (or paleoarchaeologist) it must be both very exciting and very frustrating to depend on lucky discoveries of lucky preservation events. Here's hoping they continue to make lucky finds that shed more light on our past!
I believe that all mammals like Felines, canines, humans, apes, elephants, dolphins, etc. are all capable of communicating these ideas. Elephants and apes already have evidence in the wild of having rituals for their dead, and who knows what possible ways other animals may consider their fallen brethren. I know for certain cats and dogs can mourn and miss people, understand when they pass away, and are in some ways able to communicate their grief to their owners. For example, when my cat Skittles' brother Bo died, she was very depressed for months afterwards. She would constantly cuddle his toys and sit in the spot they would always cuddle together, crying. It was very sad to see her mourning, but comforting to know we all were mourning together. Humans are not the only conscious being on this planet - I believe every single animal knows what's happening around them and can form memories, connections, thoughts, feelings, and emotions. We plainly see it in our every day lives.
There are indications that Corvids have 'death rituals' for lack of a better term, as there are recordings of wild corvids placing shiny objects or plants around the corpse of a dead flock member. There is a difference however between emotional pain at loss of a kin member, and some manner of mortuary practice, which is exceedingly rare outside of our species. Off the top of my head, only elephants, corvids, panins (chimpanzees and bonobos), and possibly some cetaceans have ever displayed something that could be ritual mourning behaviour.
Well said!
There's so much hierarchical thinking in the world (one could hope that "science" would be more neutral, more objective).
Ravens have been consistently documented and recorded forming anything from a small gathering to a huge flock around the bodies of their dead family members, making very distressed noises and congregating like some sort of ritual. Corvids in general have an intelligence that has been shown comparable to small children in many ways.
@@sdrtcacgnrjrc I agree, some archeologists seem to be primarily focused on proving Sapien supremacy using trivial points. I think the whole "burying ones dead" and "symbolic thinking" arguments simultaneously create artificial separation between us and other intelligent species in addition to ignoring more realistic explanations of what made us different. These are weird and arbitrary points to get hung up on. But if you pay attention to archeology you would think burying your dead was like +80 on an IQ test. For god's sakes, there are archeologists that still doubt if Neanderthals had language. How absurd! Language is so deeply genetic in homo sapiens that we create our own if we are raised without one (checkout the case of Nicaraguan sign language). The idea that we would create families with something we couldn't speak to is so absurd. But again some archeologists seem to be primarily focused on proving Sapien supremacy using trivial and often implausible points.
Even animals that are considered less intelligent like chickens are capable of experiencing that sort of grief and trauma to some extent. A friend of mine had a few of his chickens killed by a fox and the other chickens were so upset by this they began to show signs of depression and were physically unable to lay eggs for months afterwards.
(Yes that’s probably more of a subconscious-trauma thing rather than proving they’re consciously aware of losing their family but it still shows how profoundly animals can be affected by death)
I love episodes that don't give a definite answer. The truth is always more complicated than yes or no.
there are questions we can answer with a yes or no.
But I agree, the episodes where the plot just thickens are my favorite too 😆
@@Broockle Perhaps eventually. As the video points out, we cannot answer definitively, right now.
This flower burial inspired two burials in one of my favorite books. The author Jean M Auel is friends with archeologists and spent a lot of time learning from them before she wrote her book Clan of the Cave Bear.
The book was the first to be labeled as historical fiction. I love that she tried so hard to get all the historical elements and survival elements as right as possible for the level of knowledge available at the time.
I love Jean Auel’s work but if I remember correctly ‘the Clan’ was modeled after Cro-Magnon and modern anatomical humans, not Neaderthals
@@down-to-earth-mystery-school both were in the original book. Ayla was Cro-magnon while the Clan were Neanderthals.
Considering that even crows have burials, it seems obvious to me that they would also mourn they dead, especially because they lived in groups and thus cared for each other
If they were to put a flower w their dead that shows more than just an abstract grasp of death but also shows they have an understanding and appreciation of beauty and its opposition to the ugliness of death
I've read about Neanderthals being buried with flowers in a book called icemans inheritance in the 90s. It suggested it was ceremonial. But a friend suggested they were trying to cover the smell since they weren't buried that deep. Thank you .
Knowing that, wouldn’t they just have buried the remains deeper and covered them with rocks? 🌸
You’re welcome.
@@Alusnovalotus that's what I said!! But hey sometimes when your alone in a debate just let it go.
@@danielhill3665 you definitely should have won your debate. There’s no way that a smattering of local wildflowers would cover the stench of death. Those wildflowers were for love. But I also agree with your decision to end the argument when you realized that you weren’t making any progress. You can’t convince someone of the truth with long, drawn out arguments.
@@danielhill3665 I’m much more of the “ you wanna win this?? Prove me wrong” school of thought. You should’ve won.
I have always felt, after much consideration, that they are us. We are cousins. I honestly feel that is, based on our current understanding of our obviously shared ancestry, that it is entirely reasonable that we would have similar behaviors.
The idea that a rock fall killed them or that rodents deposited flowers is just as circumstantial. Given that we have art and jewellery most likely associated with Neanderthals and the fact that we bred with them surely indicates that they were very similar to us. Who knows maybe even more intelligent.
and honestly both those options are way harder to believe than that they simply collected nearby flowers to bury with a member of the group tbh
They were feeling, thinking creatures that decorated themselves and cared for each others wounds and sicknesses. Wether if they buried, burned, ate or what ever their dead, they did definitely have a cultural way of coping with loss and a decaying bodies.
I wrote a paper on this in an undergrad anthropology course. I got a C+. Crappy grade, but I was interested in the topic, and learned a bit about how to research and how not to write a paper.
This video was uploaded the day after my grandfather died and we did a burial for him so it seems that our ancestors or close relatives had a sense of mourning. I do appreciate that Neanderthals were at least getting a grasp of what death was and how to bury their dead instead of leaving their bodies to be free scavenger meals.
I really applaud your work to humanize other hominins. It upsets me so much to see people acting like Neanderthals were bumbling idiots when it's been known for quite a while that that's simply not true.
Maybe this is sentimentality speaking, but I'm inclined to believe they did bury their dead with a particular kind of meaning attached to it. I think it's interesting there seems to be implications that sites would be revisited at point after burial, so they may have had some concept of "speaking" with those that have passed on.
Ah I’m always so excited when I see a new episode! Thanks Eons!
I don't know why but this brought a wee tear to my eyes. How wonderful to think that they cared for members of their tribe/community just like we do. I believe in my heart that they did understand and care.
I just wanna applaud this channel again with its scientific approach to content that's not making attention grabbing claims for cheap clicks and brings up the criticisms and issues with some hypotheses. It's really interesting and refreshing, please never change, eons! 💙
The thing that convinces me that they were probably intelligent, emotional, symbolic beings is that we bred with them enough to have a lasting impact on our DNA.
I can't imagine us doing this if they were just dumb animals because so many of our choosing of a mate involves rituals and symbolism.
But we await concrete evidence anyway. 🤞
the actual amount of inbreeding is considered extremely low. the percentages given aren't total percentages but rather percentages of a certain small section of dna.
as well, we have no neanderthal mitochondria or any any neanderthal y chromosomes. that means if a neanderthal male and human female bred, the only viable offspring could be female. if a human male and neanderthal women bred, the only viable offspring that could later mate with humans, had to be male. in fact, likely only one of those options worked. there is evidence that in neanderthal populations the y chromosome was almost entirely replaced by human y chromosomes at some point. which hints at human males breeding with many neanderthal women and having only males as viable offspring, which would be why the neanderthal y chromosome disappears, and no one has neanderthal mitochondria.
in fact some darker interpretations of why neanderthals went extinct is that we didn't just outcompete with them. humans hunted them down and committed genocide on them, taking women away after the way humans do in wars today. 1 in 200 people alive on earth have genghis khan's dna. and that's not because of symbols and rituals.
and I mean people have sex with goats but I don't think that means goats are symbolic beings.
@@nao_chan_ everything you've said is why I caveated with "we await concrete evidence".
At the moment we just don't know enough but I like to speculate anyway. It's fun.
Beastiality.
@@nao_chan_ I think it's unlikely they were hunted down. It's more likely that Sapiens out competed them. An atlatyl is more effective than a throwing spear. There are papers that suspect it was male neandertals that mated with female sapiens. Apparently we don't know.
@@nao_chan_ The founder effect (given this was at least 50,000 years ago) means that it is entirely possible that our mitochondrial and y-haplogroups have simply lost any formerly present Neanderthal DNA over time due to competition with H. sapiens mtDNA and haplogroups. This means that a 'hybrid impotence' scenario is unproven, and indeed, we are much genetically closer to Neanderthals than chimpanzees and bonobos are, and chimpanzees and bonobos can produce fertile hybrid offspring.
Also, there is literally no evidence of sapiens-on-neanderthalensis violence. That is nothing more than a teenaged fantasy, there is no evidence of human-on-human violence at all before 15,000 years ago. If a lot of people are descended from Chinggis, that tends to indicate that he was a very popular lover, and not that his armies killed many people, yes? He had dozens of wives and concubines and his sons likewise. It is not incredible that would result in him having millions of partial descendants 800 years later.
Despite the low brows slopping foreheads of our closest relatives, they were just like us. Intelligent, dynamic and emphatic.
They had larger brains.
a few things I've read have suggested that they were more empathetic, caring and sociable than us. while humans were cruel, warlike and aggressive. either purposely entering neanderthal territory to hunt their food supply or directly attacking and committing genocide on neanderthals.
people have this conception of neanderthals as cavemen, and cavemen are brutes. but the reality could have been the opposite. humans were the brutish violent monsters that intruded on cooperative neanderthal societies.
@@oldmare444 But also likely not quite as efficient brains, so it more or less averages out.
@@Gabu_ what makes you think so? No proof of that.
@@oldmare444 How about the fact that Homo Sapiens Sapiens completely eradicated Neanderthals, for one?
Certain animals understand death so that isn't even a trait exclusive to hominids. We just had the capacity to do something about it.
Oh I love how the show goes into so much detail and possibilities.
I would love to see more about the finds of other Neanderthal jewelry, pigment kits, and the red dot painting… I so enjoyed studying Neanderthal culture in my cultural anthropology course!
Love your stubble salt & pepper beard ;-)
Once upon a time there was a very handsome Stegosaurus prince who lived in the lush, green forests of the prehistoric world. He was the envy of all the other dinosaurs and was admired by all the creatures that lived in the forest. The prince was known for his bravery, his quick wit, and his kind heart.
One day, the prince met a T-Rex who was unlike any he had ever encountered before. This T-Rex was a little rough around the edges, but the prince was drawn to their strength and confidence. The T-Rex was intrigued by the prince as well and the two soon became inseparable. Soon, they started sneaking away from the watchful eyes of the other dinosaurs to be alone together, sharing sweet moments and discussing their feelings.
But their love was not welcomed by all. Many of the creatures in the forest disapproved of the prince's relationship with the T-Rex, and rumors began to spread about their strange alliance. The prince and the T-Rex were soon faced with a difficult decision: to follow their hearts and stay together, or to listen to the judgment of others and go their separate ways.
Eventually, the prince and the T-Rex decided to leave the forest and start a new life together, away from the unfounded mistrust of the other creatures. They traveled to a faraway land, where they could be themselves and love who they wanted without fear of judgment.
As they settled into their new home, the prince and the T-Rex discovered that they were not alone. There were other dinosaurs there who were also in love with creatures of a different species, and they had formed a community of love and acceptance.
The prince and the T-Rex soon became the leaders of this community, helping others who were facing similar struggles to find love and happiness. They showed everyone that love knows no bounds and that it is possible to find happiness with whoever makes your heart sing.
And so, the story of the handsome Stegosaurus prince and the fierce T-Rex came to a happy end, as they lived their lives together in love and joy, surrounded by a community of friends who accepted and loved them for who they were. Their love was an inspiration to all who knew them, and a testament to the power of love to conquer all.
This was a fun read and a such wholesome ending too! 🦕
And then, a space rock fell, and they died. ☺️ the end.
Glorious story! 10/10! ❤️
What did T-Rex eat?
@@simontmn T-Rex loved its meat so much ... It turned vegan.
Great episode. I really love episodes like this one that share and discuss the unknowns.
This is awesome, please please dont ever stop PBS EONS.
Talking about things like this makes me very pensive on the human condition. These peoples lives were hard and short, they were ignorant in the scale of the universe and why things happened. Yet they continued, and found time for art, love, and life
I remember my anthropology class and my book showed a scored piece of stone or bone and I thought that's abstract thinking for sure. I feel the idea of burial ritual and symbols did not just emerge homo sapiens.
Scoring a stone makes it easier to grind. I'm not refuting your point just pointing that out.
@@flipflopski2951 This isn't what the anthropologists felt. It's not scored in a grinding sense, either.
@@paillette2010 In the cases I've seen they're wrong.
@@flipflopski2951 Are you an anthropologist? I'd love to read more.
@@paillette2010 Grind a piece of ocher for paint and you'll find out the easiest way is to score it first. It is not art or symbolism that's for sure. Some unfinished paleolithic animal figurines also have sore marks in areas where it is obvious it needed to be taken down with more grinding. Obvious to anyone who ever carved anything anyway.
I love this channel for its honest presentation. Here's what we have found, here is what we think we know, and here is what we don't know yet. Acknowledging the need for further study.
wow, 11 seconds in and already shots fired.
You guys are awesome 😀
I remember an article on cup marks where there was a slab with cup marks above a skeleton of a neanderthal child. Edit: it was about the La Ferassie site " Over its body lay three magnificent flinttools: one point and two scrapers. The grave was partially covered by a triangular limestoneslab, showing on its lower surface a sort of cup mark surrounded by small cup marks ingroups of two or four (Bergounioux,1958; Heim,1984)." (from the chapter on evidence of neandertal spiritual practices by Wendorf, Close, Schild. Africa in the period of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and contemporaries, p 329).
We know Neanderthals and Homo sapiens intermingled, so I would reason that the practice, if not developed independently by Neanderthals, could have been adopted from Homo sapiens. I honestly can't fully understand why people would assume Neanderthals are inherently less than us. It seems like nothing more than a holdover of regressive sapiens-centrism.
I believe they, and other ancient sapien species, were intelligent beings, and I will die on this hill.
Sure they were different, lived different lives, their lives may have been primitive compared to ours but that does not make them unintelligent, just different.
All the knowledge we have is build upon hundreds of thousands, perhaps even millions, of years of trials, successes, errors, observations and experimentation. Because we are humans, we adapt, it's one of our greatest strengths.
Burrials could very well have started independently, simply as a necessity to keep predators away and putting those still living in danger, and it could simply have turned into tradition from there.
@@helenetrstrup4817 honestly to me it’s like saying a polar bear must be inferior to a grizzly bear, like we are sister species ykwim? we both evolved from homo erectus iirc and were similar enough that neanderthals were able to be absorbed into our gene pool via interbreeding. if anything it makes far less sense that they *wouldn’t* be extremely similar and capable of the same level of thought.
it really just seems like a holdover of thinking humans are super special creatures and aren’t just animals that happened to evolve this way to me tbh
@@nckojita Exactly, I couldn't imagine interbreeding happening if they didn't have a similar level of understand and/or outlook on things - even if they may still be very different in said understanding and outlook. Unless, of course, taking 'prisoners' after an inevitable scuffle and abusing them in a certain way that may turn into a half-breed crotch goblin or two, to such an extent that it's still visible in our genes today, it's doubtful that there is one single answer that confirms the how and why.
Continuing speculations: It is also possible that two tribes of different hominins just inhabited the same area, not knowing they were fundamentally different and just started living together out of pure convenience. Strength in numbers and all that.
Or to bring it a little closer to home: You could view it a bit like two people from two different countries. One might be Australian and the other might be Norwegian but does that make any of them less human or less intelligent? No.
You could take a DNA test and it could tell you from which part of the world your genes are likely to have originated, within a margin of error of course, it's no different. All I have to do is look back 3 or 4 generations to find ancestors from the Netherlands.
5:07 The howl or yelp of a wolf is haunting enough in the snowy north, but imagine being in the same kind of boreal forest at night, lit only by your torch, and hearing the cackle of hyenas moving through the trees.
Amazing as always!
I'm pretty sure the main limitation to burials is the ability to efficiently dig a hole. Kinda requiring a specific tool, because if it'll take all day you'd find another way. After all eating is still a priority. So given what we know about other hominids they probably all had ritual behaviors around death. But probably not all burials. After all even we do pyres and sea burials
"if it'll take all day you'd find another way"
One day of work for two or three men, once or twice a year is not really that big of a deal ^^'
Bear in mind that according to most evaluations, hunter-gatherer societes probably had to work three to four days a week to meet all their needs. They had a lot of free time to all sorts of activities, including burying their dead, and probably religion ^^
As for the tools, the scapula of a big beast is a very efficient natural shovel, they didn't lacked tools ;)
@@krankarvolund7771 i know that's what I'm saying. But some smaller hominids (or those that formed smaller groups) that didn't necessarily hunt big game could easily not have the tool. And they could choose cave burials. It's not less of a ritual.
@@SquintyGears The consensus is more that these smaller hominids did not buried their deads at all, at least until we've found Homo naledi, which is a small hominid who apparently took a lot of efforts to put their deads in ditch in the end of a cave ^^
This begs the question: at what point does a burial site turn into an archaeological dig site? Is it appropriate to uncover the bodies once the tombstone or other marking has naturally disappeared for whatever reason? Is it appropriate to uncover the bodies once all who mourned them have also passed? Or is it strictly time-gated? Is it fine once the cadaver has fossilized? I guess it’s just a matter of semantics.
this channel is one of the most valuable treasure on open internet. teenage religiously groomed me is for ever thankful for such eye opening lessons which otherwise i will never able to get from books in a region which terrorize you for openly educating about evolution. i really hate what religion do to current day meddle east.
Awesome video, like usual!
Once upon a time there was very handsome Stegosaurus prince. In order to become the king a the Late Jurassic forest, the Stegosaurus prince had to defeat the Angry Allosaurus who kept eating all of his potential brides. A battle of epic proportions ensued as the Stegosaurus prince came face to face with the angry Allosaurus. The Allosaurus was strong and cunning but the stegosaurus was super duper handsome! Using his charming appearance, the Stegosaurus prince distracted the Allosaurus long enough for him to swing his mighty tail into the theropods face. With the Angry Allosaurus defeated, the Stegosaurus prince finally became king of the Jurassic and spend the rest of his days with his new queen chewing on cycads and rolling in mud. The end!
Neanderthals probably had distinct cultures societies and factions which interacted with each other just like that of modern humans
Thank you, for reporting 👍👍👍👍👍
Sounds like a lot of conjecture based on things that very well could be unconnected. Assuming these folks were buried, there are so many reasons why. Very interesting and thought provoking, thanks✌️
Given that we mated with them at least some of the time, it's not a stretch to think they had symbolic thinking. Maybe they had their own explosion of culture like we around 70K years ago, but at a different time.
It will always surprise me how similar we were... I mean, why do we even consider them a different species. After all, both species mated back in the day, right?
THAT would make a great movie idea. You hear what you think is a human in the brush, and it's a velociraptror or trex mimicking humans to lure you in. I think some big cats do that.
They only sometimes are. From Wikipedia: "Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis or H. sapiens neanderthalensis), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans..." And they did. "The genomes of all [human] non-sub-Saharan populations contain Neanderthal DNA."
This episode is touching, fascinating, and ends with one of my all-time favorite jokes - the juicy story of the handsome stegosaurus prince 😂
Thank you!
I would love a video on evolution's multiple experiments with flight in theropods.
To think of them as stupid is to dig up scientific racism from the grave. Great video
Archeology is like a Rorschach test: different people make different things of the same picture.
But triangulated with other data points and things get interesting. In recent years you can compare the physical record to paleocliamte data, and archeogenetics data. Plus the Rorschach test is purposefully subjective, but interpretive frameworks like hermeneutics have objective methods
Many human cultures don't bury their dead, but engage in other ritual practices that would not allow for long-term preservation of the body to satisfy archeologists. But this does not make them inferior.
So the Stegosaurus Agent says "what do you call the act?"....and Stego Prince says "The Aristocrats!"......
I find it baffling that learned scientists cannot fathom the idea that our human ancestors, be they the Neanderthals or further back, would mourn their deceased. They were human just as we are. They felt love, fear, joy and sadness. Maybe their brains weren't as evolved as ours are today, that didn't mean they didn't mourn or FEEL grief. I firmly believe that, maybe, they didn't understand death the way we do, but they did grieve and find ways to revere their dead.
I don't believe any scientists really doubt that other human species had feelings. It's just a storyline documentary makers love to tell.
Among scientists, there are always different theories, like Flip said, it's a very overused documentary line.
Amazing video beautiful wording and great subject I love these hominid videos
I just love your colorful shell bracelet.
I get the feeling that if one were to encounter a living Neanderthal, you'd barely be able to notice. If you dressed one in modern clothing and set them loose, they'd simply look like a kinda short, kinda hairier human, with very similar abilities. Not different enough for anyone to take note of without close inspection.
This man should do more episodes!!
Thank you. How the Neanderthals thought about their deaths (and the possibility of an afterlife) is actually a crucially important question that would be wonderful to answer).
Love PBS Eons!!!
Wow, just wow! 😱
Blake is even More Gorgeous with Facial Hair on 😘
I hope he decides to keep it because he looks absolutely Primal and is oozing with attitude like this 💪😎
Yaaaaaaaas #TeamBlake he is #PaleontologyDaddy
Ew to the word "oozing" but yes to the rest lmao
I wrote an essay on this topic. Shanidar cave had 7 adult bodies buried there over a 15,000 year period. It's unlikely that it was 7 roof collapses, but there are not any artifacts that would suggest an intentional burial based on modern ideas.
Blake with facial hair? 😍🥰 Video about Neanderthal cultural practices? Utterly fascinating!
The beard is a good look 👍
I always enjoy these episodes that deal with subjects that scholars don't yet fully agree on!
Neanderthal rock art and a bone flute suggest to me that symbolic thought was there
Neandertals existed across vast stretches to time and space. It's nonsense to assume every group had the same culture and customs. Some did one thing, some did another.
Thank you very much.
Blake could talk about the science behind how paint dries and I'd still find it fascinating. 😄
paint *_CURES_* and is much more interesting than you might think.
Thanks for correcting me! I guess I'm no longer in the "watching paint dry" crew. Who knew they were wasting their time doing the wrong thing.
Maybe eating your dead could be seen as absorbing what your dead loved one's
People will fight SO hard to keep their notions of their group's "superiority". Same story over and over again. They're scared.
Beautiful video.....
The thought of Neanderthal burials is just so lovely...
Congrats to Blake on his new PR. 😎
hi, i missed you as the narrator, and nice new look!!!
Fascinating.
Thank you…
I believe they were more human than always thought. they had speech, art, cared for those sick & injured when they no longer contributed to the group. Unsurprisingly it seems they had reverence for their dead. Most importantly perhaps, they fought us Homo sapiens for one hundred thousand years. We had a much greater cranial capacity in those times and our genius & creativity could not resolve the problem of our cousins in all that time
I'm pretty sure neanderthals and other homo genuses didn't fight their kin or their relatives as much as the movies depict. Warfare is mostly an agricultural phenomenon, purely nomadic or hunter-gatherer tribes don't fight as viciously as the farmers, because there's usually not much worth fighting about.
You know humans probably encountered Neanderthals and didn't think they were vastly different than us? We interbred. Neanderthals went extinct likely because of environmental factors. Not because we waged war for thousands of years. Its unlikely, at least. Neanderthals also were never a "problem" to humans. No more than other human tribes were a problem to other human tribes. Its doubtful we would have even recognized an inherent difference.
@@maltheopia that's wrong. Even chimps and ants fight their tiny little wars. It is resource scarcity. Every social species fight wars. The more sophisticated species (f.e. chimps) also have politics.
Other animals serm have concept of death even primitive animals like fish .but are fish really so primitive
I heard about this for the first time in the book Ancestors by Alice Roberts and was actually surprised that I remembered this site as it’s been a while since I read that book.
This video was posted just when i am working on my assignment about neanderthals and symbolism. Amazing!
This is going to help me. Thank you.
also neandertals have the oldes evedince of caring for the sick and injured and disabeld.
Actually there’s evidence for older species. Shanidar 1 is the famous Neanderthal skull with injuries to the face, but there’s a homo erectus skull from about 2 million years ago with a similar situation. The Dmanisi 4 skull is from a group of 5 homo erectus specimens found in Georgia (Homo erectus georgicus) from roughly 2 million years ago. This skull is lacking all its teeth, aside from one molar I think. However, all the places for the teeth had been healed over meaning this individual survived for a long time after, meaning someone had to have been feeling him. This is evidence of compassion in hominins from a few million years before Neanderthals.
There's at least one example of such care dating back to homo erectus
seems that I am not up to date. thank you for the correction
@@antoniaweber8074 No problem. It’s very interesting topic if you want to look more into it.
Well when will the human civilization stop having some sort of superiority complex and instead just appreciate the diversity of nature
nature is great. And chances are, we are superior to the Neanderthals. Maybe they were extremely unlucky with a disease. (Well, in this case, is our immune system superieor? Or shall we call it just luck?) Or maybe we outcompeted them somehow. In this case, by definition, we are superior. And no, we are not the "most perfectest" animal. We are the best in some categories and we sukk in many others.
Danke
I hope some day we get the answer, but I mean, elephants have been observed engaging in mourning, burying their dead, and visiting remains (source: Harper collins); so why not our distant relatives