Many would be surprised to learn that early humans, both Neanderthals and others, were burying their dead 120,000 years ago in the Levant (roughly, modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria, and Palestinian territories). At ZME Science, science journalist Tibi Puiu tells us that researchers who studied 32 graves (17 Neanderthal and 15 Homo sapiens) from that era onward found both similarities and differences:

Both groups buried the bodies with grave goods, animal bones or shells for example, but the way they buried people differed:

Neanderthals preferred burials deep in caves. And they often laid their dead in a variety of positions — sometimes curled up in a fetal pose, other times stretched out or semi-flexed. Their burials sometimes involved simple markers: stones placed near the body or even beneath the head, perhaps to serve as a kind of rudimentary pillow.

Homo sapiens, our ancestors, were more uniform in their approach. They favored cave entrances or rock shelters, with their dead almost always positioned in a tight, fetal position. Their graves often featured a splash of red ocher — an ancient pigment that might have symbolized something about the person’s identity or status. Shells, too, appeared in some Homo sapiens graves, likely carried from distant shores, perhaps to mark kinship or social ties.

“Neanderthals and early humans started burying their dead at the same time — and it may be more about competition than honoring the dead,” November 4, 2024

That means that the culture of the group that buried the deceased can be discerned.

Might graves have been a way of marking territory?

The researchers, Ella Been, Omry Barzilai, et al, who published their results in L’Anthropologie, suggest in their Abstract: “A compelling indicator of land ownership is evident in the widespread practice of burials by both populations. We hypothesize that the growing frequency of burials by these two populations in Western Asia is linked to the intensified competition for resources and space resulting from the arrival of these populations.”

They believe that the practice of burying the dead started in the Levant and that it ceased abruptly about 50,000 years ago when Neanderthals left the area. It started up again, they tell us, with the Natufian culture of about 15,000 years ago.

These assumptions prompt a couple of questions: If the very presence of the dead helped enforce ancient claims on a cave, was that because people knew that their ancestors were buried there? Or did they believed that the spirits of the dead were protecting the cave?

Of course, we can’t know at this distance but, as I have noted earlier, the human mind has no history. We see it where it pops up in the archeological record.

It seems a stretch to conclude that human burial customs started in the Levant and then just stopped for many millennia. The researchers had only 32 burials to study. Theory will be much more secure when we have thousands of burials to study!

You may also wish to read: The human mind has no history. There is no good reason to assume that human intelligence evolved from mud to mind via a long slow history. When we look at the human past, we see lights flashing on suddenly. Technology evolves but not the mind as such.