video:
A video of a 3D rendering of the hole in the scapula and fragments embedded in the sediment underneath the scapula in situ prior to conservation.
view moreCredit: Dr Emma Pomeroy
- Circular hole in 75,000-year-old scapula suggests lethal conflict involving sharpened wooden spears among Neanderthals in the Middle East.
- Remains also show evidence of brutal facial injury at least a year before death, meaning Neanderthal was likely cared for prior to dying violently.
A round hole in the shoulder blade (scapula) of a Neanderthal whose partial remains were unearthed in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan may be the earliest known example of lethal interpersonal violence with a wooden spear in the hominin fossil record.
The Neanderthal’s scapula – a broad, flat bone so thin in places it becomes almost translucent when held up to light – was preserved almost intact under seven-and-a-half metres of rock and sediment for around 75,000 years.
Intact, that is, apart from the 15mm-wide circular perforation, which Cambridge archaeologists who led the excavation say was made by a spear of sharpened wood, as a spear tip of flint or stone would leave a flat or angular hole.
The spear penetrated the left chest cavity from the front and travelled through the body – including lung and likely major arteries – before punching a hole in the left scapula, causing rapid death. Researchers think the fatal strike may have been an intended “heart shot”.
Bevelling around the hole is typical of an exit wound. The team found tiny shards of bone displaced by the weapon, the position of which suggests a spear entered from above at a downward trajectory. They were even able to piece back part of the hole using these fragments, guided by faint ridges where the bone was marked by muscle.
“It’s extraordinary to have a perfectly preserved scapula from 75,000 years ago. These bones are so thin that you often don’t get complete scapulae from modern burials,” said Dr Emma Pomeroy, study lead author from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology. “We were able to lift it out in one piece from under almost eight metres of rock and sediment.”
Archaeologists call the remains Shanidar A, named for the famous cave in which they were found, and have published their findings in the journal Scientific Reports.
Due to decomposition, very few wooden objects survive from deep in prehistory. Some waterlogged examples of spears dated to around 200,000 years ago Рwhen early Neanderthals roamed Europe Рwere found in Sch̦ningen, Germany, in the 1990s.
These preserved spears – some over two metres long – were manufactured from carefully-selected timber to have weight distribution optimised for throwing, like modern javelins, and were probably used for hunting large game.
The earliest known rounded wooden spear is over 400,000 years old. Just the pointed end survived, pulled from the UK shoreline at Clacton-on-Sea in 1911.
Similar technology may well have caused the death of Shanidar A, argue researchers. They say the wound could be the first evidence for use of sharpened wooden spears in the prehistoric Middle East.
“Holes left by recreations of spears from this time are an excellent fit for the one we found in the Neanderthal scapula,” said Pomeroy, a fellow at Newnham College, Cambridge. “That early technology absolutely works for this wound.”
“What evidence we have suggests that Neanderthals and their ancestors developed woodworking and weapon-making skills many thousands of years before the death of Shanidar A. This package of capabilities could have spanned the full range of Neanderthal homelands, from Wales to Siberia.”
Pomeroy points out that the death might have been a hunting accident. “Animals such as mammoths may have been hunted up close with thrusting spears, so it’s easy to imagine lethal injuries.”
However, she says there are hints of deliberate violence. “The position of the wound and the force required to push it right through the Neanderthal’s body bear the hallmarks of an intended kill shot directed towards the heart.”
There is no way of knowing the context for the violence, and whether modern humans could have been involved, although archaeologists believe the most straightforward interpretation is interpersonal violence between Neanderthals.
“All we can ever know about the end of this Neanderthal’s life is that it was violent, and came at the end of a wooden spear,” said Prof Graeme Barker, fellow of St. John’s College, Cambridge, who leads the Shanidar Cave excavations.
“Evidence of systematic violence is extremely rare in deep prehistory. The vast majority comes from periods of settled farming communities thousands of years after hunter-gather societies like our Neanderthals.”
Split tooth and signs of caring
The shoulder blade was excavated alongside a mostly complete right hand, two left ribs plus a right-rib fragment, and seven teeth – all that remains of an adult Neanderthal estimated to have been around 45 years old when they died violently.
One tooth, an incisor from the front of the lower jaw, had been split lengthways, with only half remaining, while surrounding teeth had been rotated inward.
The half-tooth had significant tartar (dental calculus) build-up along the exposed root canal, suggesting it stayed in the mouth for some time after what scientists say must have been major blunt-force trauma to the front of the face.
“Surviving a blow that splits a tooth in this fashion, then continuing to live and eat for a period of at least a year and maybe more, would have required care and support from other Neanderthals,” said Pomeroy.
Shanidar A may have been fed soft food after the initial injury, says Pomeroy. Previous research on sediment in Shanidar Cave shows that plant foods were being soaked before cooking around the same time. “There’s no doubt that Shanidar A would have had difficulty communicating and been in absolute agony for a long period of time.”
“The remains of Shanidar A reflect the dual nature of so much of what we recognise as human. On the one hand, we have evidence of a terribly violent end. On the other, this was clearly an individual who was cared for during their lifetime.”
Prof Barker said: “It is fascinating to have evidence for both compassion and violence amongst Neanderthals, our closest evolutionary cousins, embodied in this one individual.”
‘Funerary behaviour’
The vast cave in the foothills of Iraqi Kurdistan known as Shanidar is one of the world’s most famous Neanderthal sites. Excavations in the 1950s led by Ralph Solecki found ten individuals, including a “cluster” of four located in the same spot despite dying at different times, suggesting the Neanderthals had returned to inter their dead.
Remains of a Neanderthal from another part of the cave, who lived thousands of years later, showed evidence of a paralysed arm, arthritis, deafness and partial blindness. Yet they had lived a long life, so must have been cared for.
These signs of compassion, social support, and ritual around death, led to a revision of the Victorian view of Neanderthals as brutish and subhuman. Evidence of sophistication has continued to emerge, from cave art to jewellery, along with genetic analysis showing interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans.
Shanidar A was unearthed in 2020, and is one of three further Neanderthals found in the burial cluster by the Cambridge-led team since 2015, taking the total to five – four adults and an infant – in an area of the cave just 1.5 metres long by one metre wide, and a metre deep.
The spot is located directly behind a large vertical boulder, a “prominent marker”, and the remains are separated by thin layers of sediment. Shanidar A is the deepest yet found in the cluster, and possibly the first lain to rest in the space, positioned on their back, head facing east, as with the body directly above.
“The best explanation is intentional and symbolic funerary behaviour,” said Pomeroy. “These Neanderthals returned to the same place to lay their dead to rest. Some were deposited before the earlier body had fully decomposed, so this was happening within years or decades.”
Journal
Scientific Reports
