Funeral rituals in the stone age: what they were like and what they show us

Death is an aspect addressed in all cultures. All over the world, a moment is dedicated to those who have just left, performing a ceremony in their memory.

One question that archaeologists have asked is since when human beings celebrate and bury our deceased. Is it unique to our species or have other hominids buried their dead?

Next we are going to talk about funeral rituals in the stone age, that is, the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, as well as understanding the difficulty of knowing if they really had a concept of death.

• Related article: "The 6 stages of Prehistory"

Funeral rituals in the stone age: characteristics and discoveries

Death is an event that is accompanied by rituals in practically all cultures.. Wherever you are, in all cultures, when someone dies, a tribute is prepared for them. This can consist of a Western-style burial, with the corpse inside a coffin that, after saying the last goodbye, will be cremated or buried. In other parts of the world, the corpse is thrown into the sea, respectfully left out in the open for vultures to eat, or it is even skinned and its bones placed in decorative urns.

It becomes clear that the abstract idea of ​​death is present in all human beingsregardless of how “complex” or “civilized” your culture is.

However, one question that archaeologists have always asked is since when modern (and not so modern) humans buried our dead. A deliberate burial is synonymous with understanding the concept of death and this is why we have tried to understand how far this abstract idea could have appeared in our minds.

Given the existence of archaeological sites in which human bones have been found apparently placed on purpose, It has been suggested that our ancestors could understand what death was. Death is an abstract idea, which is not limited to understanding that something that was alive is no longer alive: it is understanding that it is an irreversible phenomenon, that whoever dies is gone forever.

Funeral rituals in the Stone Age have been the subject of extensive study since, if discovered, they would be the confirmation of abstract thought in our ancestors.

Traditionally it has been thought that only modern humans burial their dead, however, archaeologists are increasingly critical of this idea.. Let's see what funeral rituals were like in the stone age, or at least the interpretation that has been made of them.

Rituals in the Paleolithic

The Paleolithic is the oldest period of Prehistory. Although at this time you can already find the manufacture of certain tools, the idea that hominids could bury their loved ones is still debatable. This period is subdivided into three: Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic, and Upper Paleolithic.

lower paleolithic

A widespread belief among the population is that our most ancient ancestors did not treat their most recent dead in a special way. The absence of deliberate burials has called into question that they understood what death was or had abstract ideas, assuming that they must not be very intelligent.

However, this idea changed with the findings of the Sima de los Huesos in Atapuerca, with skeletal remains with an age of 430,000 years and found in a place that does not seem to have been used domestically some.

Is about a kind of cave that overlooks a natural well, in which the bones of at least 28 hominins have been found, along with remains of quartzite tools. Given how far away it is and the fact that it does not seem to have been used daily, it has been interpreted that the Sima de los Huesos is a kind of prehistoric cemetery.

Although there are those who think that these bones could be found there by accident, as brought by a flood or by a predator, the theory of deliberate burial is the one that makes the most sense. If there had been floods, not only remains of hominids would be found, but also of other animals. This site, if it is true that it is a burial place, would confirm the existence of deliberate burials of more than 200,000 years.

In one of the most difficult-to-access chambers of the Rising Star Cave in South Africa, 15 skeletal remains similar to humans have been found. This hypothetical new species has been called homo naledi, and it appears to be another deliberate burial.

There is no evidence of a natural disaster to explain why the skeletal remains were there, nor is there any sediment or water that could be due to flooding. Apart from the bones of an owl, there are no remains of other animals or possible predators that brought those bones there.

middle paleolithic

As we enter the Middle Paleolithic we find more traces of deliberate burial rituals. It seems that some Neanderthals carried out rituals for their dead, but in a somewhat violent way perhaps for our modern Western vision: they disemboweled the corpses and broke the joints. It has been hypothesized that they could perform ritual cannibalism with their dead.

There is evidence of possible deliberate Neanderthal burials at Pontnewydd cave in Wales, dated to 230,000 years. Between the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, the Neanderthals carried out increasingly sophisticated burials, both for small children and for their elders. This suggests that their society was more egalitarian than one might think, in which age was not a distinguishing factor.

Similarly, there are no confirmed grave goods remains in those Neanderthal graves. This is quite significant, since the trousseau is an indicator of ceremonial thought, of leaving things for the dead to take them to the other world. Likewise, it is assumed that the Neanderthals could have a concept of death, or at least understand that it was an irreversible phenomenon.

As for modern human beings or Homo sapiens, it is well known that they have traditionally been associated as the only ones capable of performing funeral rituals. This, based on what has already been seen, has been questioned. What is clear is that the first deliberate burials of modern humans were much more sophisticated compared to those of their ancestors or other species of humans.

One of the first deliberate burials found made by Homo sapiens It is located in Israel and dates back about 100,000 years. In it, delicately placed bone remains were found, with trousseau composed, mostly, of animal bones.

Superior paleolithic

But it will not be until the Upper Paleolithic in which there is a "boom" of funeral rituals, since there are not a few bone remains found from this time. An interesting case is found in the United Kingdom, in Goat's Cave. William Buckland in 1823 found in this cave, located on the Gower peninsula, Wales, some very old bone remains, painted red.

Buckland was a great follower of the Bible, which made him incapable of thinking that the world was more than 5,000 years old. He thought those bones were those of some prostitute brought back at the time of the Roman invasion of Britain, and for this he named her the Red Lady of Paviland. Ironically, this lady was actually a man, he would have been 25 or 30 years old when he died and he lived about 33,000 years ago and, to make matters worse, it was accompanied by skeletal remains of long-extinct animals, that not even the Romans could know.

The Red Lady of Paviland had a mammoth ivory bracelet, earring, and numerous shell and bone remains. The corpse must have been buried with clothes and shoes. The nature of this burial suggests that he was an important man, considering the possibility that he was a shaman and that the trousseau that accompanied him were elements of his rite during his lifetime.

• You may be interested in: "What are hominids? Characteristics and the 8 main species"

Rituals in the Mesolithic

There are few complete human remains that are attributed to the Mesolithic, suggesting that there were few burials or that other methods of wakefulness were practiced. Among the most common practices one could consider descarnation, that is, tearing the meat from the bones. This has been considered because the remains from this time are mostly small bone fragments or bones with sharp object marks. This has suggested the practice of cannibalism in primitive Homo sapiens.

One of the most complete skeletal remains can be found in Gough's Cave, in Cheddar, England.. This skeleton, called Cheddar Man or Cheddar Man, must have died in 7150 BC at about twenty years of age. His skull had a hole, which led to the assumption that he must have died violently, although he later hypothesized that he actually had a bone disease and the cranial bones began to wear away, leading him to death.

Another cave in the Cheddar area is Aveline's Hole, in which the remains of at least 70 people have been found, many with disarticulated bones. However, the bones were placed anatomically, that is, they were not thrown away as if they were the remains of any animal, in addition to the fact that there were elements such as animal teeth that suggest that they were not victims of cannibals, but deceased relatives whose meat was ritually eaten or torn off by some reason.

Unfortunately, this collection of Mesolithic remains ended up being lost in World War II due to German bombing. Current archaeological interpretations are based on period descriptions and black and white photographs.

Neolithic

In the Neolithic period, people began to feel more connected to the land, with which the treatment of death and burials took place differently. Even Significant differences begin to appear between towns and villagesThat is, we could talk about certain cultural differences.

For example, in the United Kingdom, between 3800 a. C and 3300 a. C we can find burials in chambers, especially in the south and east of Great Britain. Before placing the bones, they are fleshed out, placed in mortuaries and, after a while, they were sealed by putting mud and stones on top. It is quite likely that he held some sort of ceremony before, during, and/or after the bones were laid. As of 3500 B.C. c. the graves begin to be individual and the body remains intact.

Some notable tombs from this period in Europe are the dolmens. These monumental structures, which could perfectly exceed 5 meters, were the most popular in various regions of Europe around 3,000 BC. c. They had a burial chamber and at the end presented a decorated passage, which was normally aligned with the positions of the sun at the summer or winter solstice.

ritual cannibalism

Since many skeletal remains of our ancestors have found tooth marks, many archaeologists assumed that they were due to cannibalism as we understand it in the popular sense. That is, it was thought that ancient humans ate each other, either because of tribal conflicts or because there was a shortage of food.

However, as we have been commenting before, the cause of this could be ritual, that is, they ate other human beings who had just died and, as a sign of respect, ate their meat. Cannibalism could be a funeral ritual in which the meat of the loved one was consumed to have it closer, or it could just be a combination of harnessing nutrients while honoring the deceased. There are many theories that have been raised for this practice.

Likewise, Ritual or not, human flesh was treated much like animal remains.. They tore up the meat, broke the bones and removed the marrow. They even cooked the meat on certain occasions, and this can be associated with nutritional interests rather than rituals.

Bibliographic references:

• Olària i Puyoles, C. (2003). Death as a transcendental rite. Epipaleolithic-Mesolithic funerary rites and their probable influence on the megalithic world. Quaderns of prehistory and archeology of Castelló, 23, 85-106
• Andrés-Rupérez, M. T. (2003). The concept of death and the funeral ritual in prehistory. Archeology Notebooks. 11. 13-36.