Material Evidence: caring for adult vulnerabilities

Abstract

What can archaeological evidence contribute to our understanding of the origins of human empathy, compassion and generosity? We have seen in Chapter 1 that our human capacity for compassion and our tendencies to help others have an important evolved biological basis. Here, we focus on what the preserved material evidence of early humans and their behaviours can contribute to our understanding of how our emotional motivations to help others emerged. We particularly consider often-overlooked archaeological evidence for care for adults made vulnerable by illness or injury. This evidence demonstrates a deep past to human emotional motivations to help those around them. Furthermore, changing emotional motivations are a response to wider context and selective pressures, similar to those also seen in some other social mammals. A critical appraisal of evidence for responses to illness and injury suggest that significant changes in helping behaviour and responses to vulnerability may have taken place around 2 million to 1.5 million years ago – around the time of key ecological changes and a transition to a new hunting niche. Responses to vulnerability and motivations to help may have been a central element to cognitive-emotional changes that set humans on a track that is distinctive and much more interdependent than that of other apes. Considering the archaeological evidence for care allows us to add a time depth and an explanation for the model of changes in cognitive and affective empathy outlined in Chapter 1. An understanding of the potential significance of care prompts further questions, such as around different evolutionary pathways in emotional motivations, the relationship between biology and culture in care for illness and injury, the extent of human dependence on such care, and its significance in terms of extended lifespans. Nonetheless, it is clear that an extension of human empathy, compassion and generosity from at least 2 million years ago played a much more significant role in our evolutionary origins than is usually accepted, prompting us to reconsider the driving factors leading to human evolutionary success. Following on from the significance of interdependence, we consider the formation of relationships based on emotional commitments and trust, and the increasing importance of social reputation, in Chapter 3.

The child who lived: Down syndrome among Neanderthals?

“…Given the chronic nature of their impairments, the individual represented by CN-46700 would have required continuous and important care, beyond the normal altricial care, throughout their life. Because of the demanding lifestyle of Neanderthals, including high levels of mobility (4,6,7), it is difficult to think that the mother of the individual would have been able to provide such care alone and also carry out normal daily activities over a prolonged period of time. It is likely, therefore, that the mother required the continuous help of other members of the social group, either for assistance in performing other daily tasks (or to relieve her from performing them) or to directly assist in providing the necessary care for the child, or both.…”

“…The existence of caregiving for sick or injured individuals among Neanderthals has been known for a long time, although interest in understanding the implications of this behavior has increased in recent years (1)(2)(3)(4). For some authors, the caregiving among Neanderthals would be related to a broader and more complex social context, of great adaptive value (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8).…”

“…The existence of caregiving for sick or injured individuals among Neanderthals has been known for a long time, although interest in understanding the implications of this behavior has increased in recent years (1)(2)(3)(4). For some authors, the caregiving among Neanderthals would be related to a broader and more complex social context, of great adaptive value (3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). Here, we present the case of a Neanderthal individual who survived to at least 6 years of age suffering from a severe inner ear pathology, most likely associated with the presence of Down syndrome.…”

“…On the one hand, there are authors who believe that caregiving took place in a context of reciprocal selfishness between individuals able to reciprocate the favor, while other authors argue that assistance to sick or injured individuals among Neanderthals went beyond reciprocal selfishness and was produced by a genuine feeling of compassion (1-4, 6, 7). In turn, this compassionate feeling would be part of a broader collaborative behavior of great adaptive value that would include other prosocial behaviors (1,(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8). In this context, the study of infants with pathologies that would have required the assistance of other members of the group to survive is particularly interesting, as children have a very limited possibility to reciprocate the assistance received.…”

“…On the other hand, when the intensity or duration of the care necessary for the child's survival exceeds the mother's possibilities, she requires additional extramaternal help from other individuals in the social group. Thus, the study of individual children offers the possibility of testing whether the caregiving is directly related to such a complex social strategy as collaborative parenting (4,12). Unfortunately, to date, no case of a pathological immature Neanderthal individual has been known for which these hypotheses could be tested.…”