Neanderthal Communities of Care: How & Why Did Non-modern Hominins Care for Victims of Interpersonal Violence?

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Systems of Care in Times of Violence" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Within the constantly evolving field of human origins, researchers are looking for new methods and theories to infer behavior from the paleoanthropological record. Here, Shanidar 3, a Neanderthal specimen with evidence of partially healed sharp force trauma, is examined using the Bioarchaeology of Care approach. Based on a comparison with paleopathological and forensic literature, Shanidar 3’s injuries are consistent with sharp force trauma caused by a penetrating object. The severity of Shanidar 3’s injuries suggest that healthcare provisioning was required for immediate survival. Furthermore, the relatively high number of extreme injuries which demonstrate healing in the Neanderthal record, referred to as the "rodeo traumatic lesion pattern" due to the high incidence of head and neck trauma, indicates a system of care that was in place for injured members of the species. This paper explores how bioarchaeological theories can be applied to non-modern hominins, such as Shanidar 3, to infer not only violent behaviors among individuals, but the systems of care that were enacted to assist such individuals and ensure their immediate survival.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Systems of Care in Times of Violence   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23545