A symbolic Neanderthal accumulation of large herbivore crania | Hacker News Reader

A symbolic Neanderthal accumulation of large herbivore crania

nature.com

51 pointsrntn29 comments

> This behaviour seems to have no subsistence-related purpose but to be more symbolic in its intent.

It's very humanizing. A growing body of evidence is suggesting that Neanderthal culture was much more vibrant and sophisticated than originally thought.

Fascinating.

There's a rule in archeology: Anything you don't understand is "a ritual".

So anytime you read "ritual" or "symbolic" or whatever, just mentally replace with "we don't know why".

It is significant psychologically. It gives insight into their minds and how they thought about the world around them. It shows there was a culture, a civilization.

I don't think this tells us anything other than they collected a bunch of animal skulls. Anything else is projection of values.

If you're going to get sceptical, it doesn't even tell us that. Maybe the collection is just a side-effect of the true action - eating the brain direct from the skull for example. The assemblage is then just a midden.

Because it's obvious the only way to eat animal brain is in a cave, unlike the rest of the animal that can be consumed outside.

The article does say that the secondary processing, inside the cave, was to remove the brain ("A second round of processing took place within the cave, perhaps related to accessing the brain and/or working the crania into the configuration in which they were found in Level 3. [...] This is supported by the large number of percussion-associated tools present, by the percussion marks associated with the removal of the maxillae and the extraction of the brain, and by the presence of some isolated cranial fragments.") Note that in at least one case, the maxillae was found under the skull - it was left exactly where it was processed. Does that sound like a collection to you?

But ok, change the reason, it wasn't really the point. The point was that the apparent collection could be a side-effect rather than a goal, and there's insufficient evidence to say "they collected skulls".

So... they're hauling the skull and the skin into the cave, where they can use smoke and brains to tan the skin. Again, the skull collection becomes a side-effect of the goal (tanned skins).

Although the evidence for fire damage still suggests cooking to me.

Ever see an animal do that? Did you ask yourself why they would do it? If they collected them, doesn't it mean they held some significance for them? How could these animal skulls be significant for them? How did they get the skulls? What happened to the animals they came from?

Just because you can't see or understand something, doesn't mean something isn't there or that there is no way to know anything. Indeed, it is you that are projecting your values onto something you find inscrutable: if I can't understand, then no one can. What you should turn your searing skepticism towards is your own unsupported conclusions.

But does it ? Doesn't it tell more about us since it's mostly us projecting our idea of culture on them despite having literally 0 clue whatsoever ?

It really does. There is nothing practical about collecting animal skulls. They can't be used as tools, so there is nothing practical about them. They saw some value in them enough to separate them, maybe what once was a habit out of a curiosity became tradition and ultimately a ritual in recognition of the importance to them of these animals, which sustained them and allowed them to survive. This impractical collecting is an emergence of a more human type of consciousness, a birth of a spiritual life such as no animal would ever have prepared.

This is not projecting, it is investigative understanding of what makes us like them, recognizing the similarities. These were not animals. They were primitive peoples. Humans have a rich internal life of dreams and impressions, and so too did they. Maybe in 20K - 50K years this impractical collection of skulls becomes an alter. Would you also say, if they found what was obviously some kind of alter, that it didn't mean anything, or that there was no possibility of understanding what they used it for? It speaks volumes.

When you can't see something, your first impression is that nothing is there. This isn't always true, and whatever it is you are good at and have full understanding of, it doesn't mean that you are expert at everything. Archeologists and anthropologists are not morons. They do not invent things, they uncover and can see and understand through experience and study things we never will without also having their experience and knowledge. They know what they're doing and recognize the significance of their own work, just as you know your own expertise and recognize its significance.

More of a meme than a rule. Don't take it too seriously. :)

It reminds me of walking in the woods near my place and seeing wooden tipi like cabins. It's just kids playing around, they see one and decide to make one, now there are dozens, an archeologist would probably say it is a place of high religious importance and communication with the gods.

> It's very humanizing.

They certainly were human. Homo sapiens only appears 200-300kya and initially shared the planet with as many as 8 or more other human species, but humans first evolved 2.3myo.

If you look at the racism problems today (with minor genetic differences causing such fuss), imagine the proto-racism back then. Scary.

Population density was extremely low though. So imagine it was tough to form large communities and most people mainly only had contact with people within their group and maybe a few others living close by.

From that perspective I find it hard to imagine that neanderthals would be treated that much differently than other outsiders. Well unless they behaved significantly than homo sapiens when interacting with other people..

maybe not the most ethical and objective analogy but dogs and wolves within the same pack seem to get along much better than they do with wolves from other packs. So I’m not sure species would be a huge issue in very simple communities

Maybe you're right. Physical/behavioral differences were bigger, but fears based on them were simpler. As in your wolf/dog analogy - maybe they weren't developed enough to make a big deal out of it.

As you're probably aware, race doesn't actually exist. There is no basis in science for it. It only appeared as a categorizing concept in the late 16th century. Racism is far older. Subcategories such as antisemitism are ancient, but there was no concept of it and no word for it, and we only understand it as such now looking back.

You should read Dawn of Everything. That's basically the premise: We completely underestimate the intelligence and creativity and purposefulness of their societies.

Another book (series) suggestion:

Robert J. Sawyer - The Neanderthal Parallax [fiction]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax

Somebody please play the "Predator" croaking sound as it gloats over its skull collection.

MUAHAHHA.... RRRRRAAA.

Edit: Actually, I was thinking of my late grandfather's accumulation of catfish jaws on a telephone pole that looked like a cross between shark and snake heads.

I can't help but wonder if the skulls were used as bowls or perhaps cook pots. They mention fire marks on some of them.

I also seem to recall someone mentioning a tanning process that uses brains?

Yes, brain tanning is very common.

Fun fact: The brain size of an animal scales with the size of brain needed for tanning.

A rat-brain is big enough to tan a rat body, while a buffalo brain is big enough to tan the buffalo. Makes for a handy 'everything you need is already here' level of efficiency.

You don't use the cranium as the tanning vessel though, it's orders of magnitude too small.

Today I learned a new word!

allochthonous (adj.) originating from a place other than where it was found.

I'm going to start using this word around the house instead of misplaced:

Hmm. Someone left the TV remote in the bathroom for some reason. "The TV remote is allochthonous"

In our house, I'm afraid almost everything that's not too heavy can become an allochthonous object, mainly due to the object-relocating services provided by our kids. I'm probably guilty of some "oh crap I'll put this here for now" action too, which certainly ups the allochthonousness of whatever I was holding.

Looking up the steppe rhino yields some wild pictures. An interesting animal I haven't heard of before.

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