A Neanderthal skeleton from Iraq's Shanidar Cave bears a fatal spear wound through the chest, likely inflicted 75,000 years ago.
75,000 years ago, an adult Neanderthal was killed by a blow to the chest from a sharpened wooden spear. Soon after, the living laid the body to rest in a part of the cave that already held several other dead.
The hole in the shoulder blade
In 2020, archaeologists unearthed the skeleton deep inside Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. Puncture marks in the shoulder blade showed the spear had entered through the chest, passed through the heart and reached the back.
The individual also had a partly healed facial injury, which suggested someone had cared for them while they recovered.
The dead get their own room
The body was left in the spot that became a cluster of other Neanderthal remains. That looks like a deliberate burial ground.
The apparent placement of the body 'strongly suggests a level of care during and immediately after death', said Emma Pomeroy of the University of Cambridge.
It is among the earliest direct evidence of violence between hominins. But the death blow could have been a hunting accident rather than an attack.
Why it matters
It puts violence and care at the same point in time: the same group of people could pierce a companion's chest with a spear, tend a wounded survivor back to health, and lay their dead in a proper grave.
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