41,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton may solve long-standing mystery

70,000-year-old skeleton reveals information about rites 1:19

(CNN) -

Is it an exclusive practice of

Homo sapiens to

bury the dead?

Or did other primitive humans like Neanderthals put their loved ones to rest underground?

This is a long-standing topic of debate among archaeologists.

Now, evidence of the funerary behavior of primitive beings could shed light on Neanderthal cognitive abilities and social mores.

And if, like modern humans, they were capable of symbolic thinking.

Dozens of Neanderthal skeletons have been discovered buried in Europe and parts of Asia over 150 years.

The best preserved, however, were found in the early 20th century and were not excavated using modern methods.

This has led to skepticism as to whether the practice of Neanderthal burial was deliberate.

This artist's reconstruction shows the burial of a child by a Neanderthal at La Ferrassie, in southwestern France.

© Emmanuel Roudier.

A new analysis of a 41,000-year-old Neanderthal boy skeleton, found in a French cave in the 1970s, provides new evidence that Stone Age hominins intentionally buried their dead.

French and Spanish researchers re-examined the remains using modern high-tech methods, re-excavated the original archaeological site where the bones were found in La Ferrassie, south-western France, and reviewed the notebooks and field diaries from the original excavation.

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Its conclusion?

The corpse of a two-year-old Neanderthal was deliberately deposited in a pit dug in the sediment.

The remains of the Neanderthal child

The absence of marks from carnivores that may have attempted to poke around a discovered body and the fact that the bones were relatively undispersed with little weathering suggested that the body quickly covered itself, the researchers said.

The remains were also well preserved (better than animal bones found in the same layer of earth) despite belonging to a child.

Children's skeletons tend to have more delicate bones.

The position of the skeleton also suggested that the child had been intentionally placed there.

The head, which pointed to the east, rose higher than the rest of the body even though the earth was tilting west.

"The origin of funeral practices has important implications for the emergence of so-called modern cognitive abilities and behaviors," the study said.

"These new results provide important information for the discussion on the chronology of Neanderthal disappearance and the behavioral capacity, including cultural and symbolic expression, of these humans."

Researchers at the French National Center for Scientific Research, the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and the University of the Basque Country in Spain identified 47 bones belonging to the child's skeleton that had not been previously identified.

One piece of bone was carbon dated and found to be 41,000 years old.

The researchers confirmed that the bone belonged to a Neanderthal by analyzing the fragment's mitochondrial DNA.

The child was one of eight sets of skeletal remains found at the site.

Death rites

Potential burial evidence has also been found at one of the most famous Neanderthal sites, the Shanidar Cave in Kurdistan, located in northern Iraq.

This site housed the remains of 10 Neanderthal men, women, and children.

They found ancient pollen clumps, suggesting that Neanderthals may have included flowers as part of their funeral rites.

The most recent excavations of the Shanidar Cave have revealed more Neanderthal remains, which according to early research were deliberately buried.

Other research has suggested that there was considerable diversity in the way that European Neanderthals treated their dead relatives in the period immediately preceding their disappearance approximately 40,000 years ago, including cannibalism.

The team of researchers said current analytical standards should be applied to the other skeletal remains at the La Ferrassie site, to assess whether they, too, were buried.

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports in December.

Archeology