Did Neanderthals intentionally bury their dead? To help resolve this question, a research team presented new data on the La Ferrassie 8 (LF8) Neanderthal from France’s Dordogne region. LF8 is the partial skeleton of a two-year-old Neanderthal child found at the La Ferrassie rock shelter in the 1970s.

The authors reported that the remains were “very well preserved, despite belonging to a child which are generally more delicate.” Also, “the absence of carnivore marks, the low degree of spatial disturbance, fragmentation, and weathering suggest that they were rapidly covered by sediment.” After considering all their data, the researchers concluded:

©123rf.com/Paul Maguire

… that a burial is the most parsi­mo­ni­ous ex­plan­a­tion for LF8. Our results show that LF8 is in­trus­ive within an older (and ar­chae­olo­gic­ally sterile) sed­i­ment­ary layer. We propose that Neander­thals in­ten­tion­ally dug a pit in sterile sed­i­ments in which the LF8 child was laid. The skeleton was laid in an E (head)–W (pelvis) orientation (as are all the Neandertal skeletons found in the site for which we have information), with the head higher than the rest of the skeleton … .

This new evidence confirming that Neanderthals intentionally buried their dead adds yet more to the list of finds (see creation.com/apeman) indicating that Neanderthals were fully human descendants of Adam and Eve.

• Balzeau, A. and 13 others, Pluridisciplinary evidence for burial for the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal child, Scientific Reports 10:21230, 9 Dec 2020.