Health-related care for the Neanderthal Shanidar 1

Abstract

The bioarchaeology of care methodology is used to identify health-related care for prehistoric hominids using the skeletal indications of survival with a disability or debilitating disease that would have resulted in death if care was not given. This model involves four stages and was applied to the Neanderthal Shanidar 1 in order to evaluate the type of care possibly received by the individual and what this caregiving behaviour suggests about Neanderthal culture and behaviour. The skeletal remains of Shanidar 1 represents an adult male of advanced age who suffered from a number of debilitating pathologies that would have affected his ability to survive and contribute to his social group. Shanidar 1 required health-related care in the form of direct support and accommodation of a different role within the social group in order to survive to his age at death. The survival of Shanidar 1 to old age implies Neanderthals were capable of changing their behaviour in order to care for and accommodate injured members of their social group. This evidence of health-related care for Shanidar 1 suggests Neanderthals had a greater level of behavioural flexibility and social complexity than previously believed.

El origen de los comportamientos de cuidado: higiene y cuidado social en Homo neanderthalensis. Una revisión crítica

“…La autora presenta el método para infe-rir y estudiar los cuidados a través de informes paleopatológicos e identificar los indicadores arqueológicos de prácticas de cuidado social (necesidad de un individuo de recibir asistencia externa para su supervivencia). Este y un segundo volumen (Tilley y Schrenk 2017), son las primeras publicaciones en las que se sistematiza la metodología y se propone un marco teórico sólido para estudiar las implicaciones de este comportamiento, abriendo así una nueva línea de investigación que está potenciando la perspectiva social en arqueología (Kent, 2017;Spikins et al 2018aSpikins et al , 2018b.…”

Material Evidence: caring for adult vulnerabilities

“…Probably, as a young adult, he had suffered a blow to the left side of his face, resulting in blindness or only partial sight in one eye. He also had a hearing impairment; a withered right arm, the lower part of which had been lost after a fracture, and possible paralysis; deformities in his foot and leg, leading to a painful limp; and advanced degenerative joint disease (Crubézy and Trinkaus 1992: 411-12;Kent 2017;Trinkaus 1983;Trinkaus and Villotte 2017;Trinkaus and Zimmerman 1982: 61-62). How he suffered his eye-watering range of injuries is not entirely clear, though there has been speculation that he may have been injured in a rock fall.…”