Evidence supporting an intentional Neandertal burial at La Chapelle-aux-Saints

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1316780110
• Publication Date: 2013-12-17T02:44:35Z
• Authors: William Rendu; Cédric Beauval; Isabelle Crevecoeur; Priscilla Bayle; Antoine Balzeau; Thierry Bismuth; Laurence Bourguignon; Géraldine Delfour; Jean-Philippe Faivre; François Lacrampe...; Carlotta Tavormina; Dominique Todisco; Alain Turq; Bruno Maureille
• Keywords: [SHS.ARCHEO] Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; [SHS.ARCHEO]Humanities and Social Sciences/Archaeology and Prehistory; Burial; Fossils; Paleontology; 06 humanities and the arts; Bone and Bones; Archaeology; Animals; Humans; 0601 history and archaeology; France; History, Ancient; Neanderthals

Significance For several decades, scholars have questioned the existence of burial in Western Europe prior to the arrival of Anatomically Modern Humans. Therefore, an approach combining a global field recovery and the reexamination of the previously discovered Neandertal remains has been undertaken in the site of La Chapelle-aux-Saints (France), where the hypothesis of a Neandertal burial was raised for the first time. This project has concluded that the Neandertal of La Chapelle-aux-Saints was deposit in a pit dug by other members of its group and protected by a rapid covering from any disturbance. These discoveries attest the existence of West European Neandertal burial and of the Neandertal cognitive capacity to produce it.