Rebecca Batley at Aeon Magazine:
To understand why early humans seemed to fear the dead, we first need to consider the long history of intentional burial. Only through excavated graves, makeshift tombs and other forms of interment can we begin making sense of prehistoric anxieties surrounding the dead. However, this history is not always straightforward: though we now have a rough idea of when burial became widespread, researchers are still vigorously debating exactly when humans began deliberately interring their dead.
One of the most controversial claims is that intentional burials may have been practised as early as 240,000 years ago by one of our hominin relatives, Homo naledi. This was proposed in 2023 after a team of researchers, led by the paleoanthropologist Lee Berger, found a minimum of 15 Homo naledi skeletons in the caverns of South Africa’s Rising Star cave system. The team claims that the excavated remains show ‘a consistent pattern of differentiation’ – that is, the bodies were intentionally buried. However, this interpretation has since been challenged by other archaeologists who argue that there is no sedimentological evidence showing that the burials were deliberate.
more here.
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