Did Neanderthals Believe in an Afterlife?

reply to post by Aquarius1


you agree with his assertion that neanderthals and homo sapiens were the same species because they may have reproduced? preposterous. he's quite clearly misunderstanding his highschool biology courses. horses and donkeys are not the same species, yet they can reproduce to create the mule. i quite clearly addressed that in a previous post. yet it's ignored.

Originally posted by optimus primal
reply to post by GoldenGolem

 

i wish we still had them around, we're one of the only species on earth with no living near cousins. long long long ago there were around three or four human species surviving in the world at the same time. no longer. i think when the last neanderthal died we lost something precious. maybe someday we'll bring them back.

I always wondered how modern human, neanderthal, and other human cultures would turn out if they survived alongside us. It would amazing in my opinion, because alot of human symbolism is based on our body, even though we are not that differrent from other human species, it would be interesting to see how there symbolism, mythology, religion, and culture would have turned out. Basicley we wouldent be so alone anymore.

reply to post by Aquarius1
Hiya Aquarius, it's a good question. It seems to me, in the past few years, that Neanderthals have gone from some abstract primitive conception towards fully-formed individuals with a place in their society. Burials, jewelery and customs have all become apparent as far as we can tell.

We can only use the benchmarks of our own understandings, but if we compare what they did to what we have done...it seems reasonable to think that they believed in an after-life.

They had some form of language, buried their dead with apparent ceremony and had some kind of social structure. None of this is make-believe or romanticism...it's evidence-based.

If we speculate that they had a concept of a 'hereafter,' it raises pretty interesting questions of our own beliefs. Are our own notions of after-life an outcome of society too? Or maybe there is an after-life and it takes a certain amount of advancement before that knowledge can be expressed? Who can say? Maybe it doesn't even matter what the answer is there...just asking makes the difference.

The guys in Spain weren't Neanderthals; they were relations...Heidelbergensis. It's a detail and not that important because there are already questions about whether those guys thought about a hereafter too. In the larger picture, socially, psychologically or spiritually...we have three different strands of intelligent life and they all appear to have the basics of belief-systems hard-wired into their consciousness.

It is what it is and I guess it's up to the philosophers, anthropologists and theologians to debate the 'truth' of it all.

ETA: SnF because we both love this stuff.

Originally posted by Kandinsky
reply to post by Aquarius1

 

They had some form of language, buried their dead with apparent ceremony and had some kind of social structure. None of this is make-believe or romanticism...it's evidence-based.

Yes there is much evidence to come to that conclusion, it is rare that they find skeletal bones alone, seems it is women, men and children which begs the question, what happened to them, being huddled together and dying at the same time.

If we speculate that they had a concept of a 'hereafter,' it raises pretty interesting questions of our own beliefs. Are our own notions of after-life an outcome of society too? Or maybe there is an after-life and it takes a certain amount of advancement before that knowledge can be expressed? Who can say? Maybe it doesn't even matter what the answer is there...just asking makes the difference.

It may be that our beliefs aren't much different then theirs, in fact our current day beliefs may have come from them.

The guys in Spain weren't Neanderthals; they were relations...Heidelbergensis. It's a detail and not that important because there are already questions about whether those guys thought about a hereafter too. In the larger picture, socially, psychologically or spiritually...we have three different strands of intelligent life and they all appear to have the basics of belief-systems hard-wired into their consciousness.

Yes the basics of belief-systems could very well be hard-wired not only into their consciousness but into ours also, thus the G-d part of the brain.

We both do love this kind of stuff, thanks for posting.

Originally posted by GoldenGolem
reply to post by optimus primal

 

Thank you for correcting me.

But what do you think of them having slightly larger brains then us? Is that true? I got it from a book on prehistoric mammals.

Yes, it's true, but not by much. I think it is 1500+cc vs. 1450+cc. I have a BA in Anthropology (dated) and as I remember it, one of the issues involved statistics. We have found "only a few" Neanderthal skulls compared to Homo spaiens skulls,, which are abundant (!). The idea was that the small sample size may have resulted in a slight skewing of the brain size and that if we had more samples, you would not see this "bigger brain' phenomeon. I'd be hard pressed to document that today, but I remember the discussion in classes.

Okay, let's clear this up.

Archaic Homo Sapiens did believe in some form of religion. The term archaic homo sapiens actually refers to our ancestors including Homo Neandertalensis, Homo Heidlebergensis, Homo Erectus, and Homo Habilis, for this context (there are many more).

Many of these hominids intentionally buried their dead, often with gifts such as tools, food, and even flowers as found in one burial.

Many posts have been talking about cranial size. Neandertal did have larger brain size than us, but at the same time, whales have larger brains than bumblebees, and bees are one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet. So it should be carefully noted that encephalization doesn't have everything to do with intelligence.

I was very intrigued when I first heard about this. My thoughts immediately ran to cultural diffusion between ourselves and Neanderthal and who may have developed what early ceremonial practices first. But I noticed that some reports on this find mention that a lot of this is based on interpretation. I'm wondering if those here with backgrounds in archaeology/anthropology can shed some light on that and how that may affect this find?

reply to post by RoboKy


I have some anthropological experience. Some stuff is based on interpretation. However, most stuff isn't. That find that was announced not long ago on the first gay man found might be interpreted incorrectly, we'll probably never know. But giving tools to dead people in their graves is probably pretty straight forward, same with food offerings. How do we know? Cultural anthropology. There are societies that do this today, and we can only assume their reasoning is the same as neandertal's was thousands of years ago.

May 01, 2011

Burial Practices of the Neandethals

For decades the debate on the familial similarity of humans and Neanderthals has continue back and forth despite DNA evidence showing potential sub-species status. Their classification as human or otherwise determines whether they fall into the category of mortuary archaeology, the study of human funerary sites in the past. So far, it has been questionable whether or not Neanderthals showed the symbolic capacity necessary for the funerary behaviour displayed by humans. However, regardless of whether they are a sub-species or distinct species, new evidence is emerging which supports the idea that Neanderthals may have engaged in patterned mortuary behaviour

www.pasthorizons.com...

Their practices don't seem to indicate that they were a sub-species, since we don't have proof of their intelligence we can only speculate.

The larger question is the mental capacities of Neanderthals, the first question is what constitutes intentional burial and funeral behavior, it would seem they did what we do today to honor the dead.

reply to post by Aquarius1


They had a bigger brain and a human spirit
Yes

Originally posted by Aquarius1
A possible Neanderthal burial ground suggests that they practiced funeral rituals and possessed symbolic thought before modern humans.

April 20, 2011

Evidence for a likely 50,000-year-old Neanderthal burial ground that includes the remains of at least three individuals has been unearthed in Spain, according to a Quaternary International paper.

The deceased appear to have been intentionally buried, with each Neanderthal's arms folded such that the hands were close to the head. Remains of other Neanderthals have been found in this position, suggesting that it held meaning.

news.discovery.com...

A few dozen documented Neanderthal burials from Western Europe, Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia have already been documented.

Neanderthal skeletons found in apparent burial poses have been unearthed at a site in Spain.
The site, Sima de las Palomas, may be the first known Neanderthal burial ground of Mediterranean Europe.
Remains for six to seven other Neanderthals, including an infant and two juveniles, as well as associated tools and food, have also been excavated.

Why wouldn't they be spiritual, evidence shows that that they had loving close family relationships like we have today.

It may be that they were born with what we call today the G-d part of the brain that allows us to worship something.

It is only in the the Western world that an afterlife or reincarnation isn't embraced, it is still common in the Eastern world today.

Related topics:

Anthropology

Neanderthals

Isolated tribes today who have never been exposed to the outside world worship something, it could be as simple a rock.

They were were found covered together with rocks burying their remains, this certainly says they were more intelligent then we thought. Scientists today know very little about the Neanderthals, much of what we read is assumption on their part.

They wore clothes, used tools and it seems cooked their food over fires. We cannot assume that they were primitive and couldn't take care of themselves.

edit on 21-4-2011 by Aquarius1 because: (no reason given)

Considering they are pre flood humans with knowledge of God, I dont find this surprising