A 15-millimeter hole in a Neanderthal shoulder blade points to a sharpened wooden spear

A circular hole about 15 millimeters across in the left shoulder blade of a Neanderthal who died roughly 75,000 years ago may be the earliest known trace of a wooden spear killing a member of the human family tree. Researchers led by Dr Emma Pomeroy of the University of Cambridge argue the perforation was made by a sharpened wooden point, not a stone one, in a study published October 15 in Scientific Reports.

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The individual, called Shanidar A, comes from Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan.

What was found in Shanidar Cave

Shanidar A was unearthed in 2020 by the team led by Prof Graeme Barker, who directs the Shanidar excavations. According to the Cambridge release, the remains include the scapula, a mostly complete right hand, two left ribs and a right rib fragment, and seven teeth, all from an adult about 45 years old at death. The paper is titled “Evidence for funerary behaviour and lethal trauma in a new Neanderthal individual from Shanidar Cave.”

The bones lay under roughly 7.5 metres of rock and sediment. Shanidar A was one of five individuals, four adults and an infant, in a cluster about 1.5 metres by 1 metre behind a large vertical boulder. It was the deepest and possibly the first placed there, laid on its back with the head to the east. Some of the later bodies were placed before earlier ones had fully decomposed, which suggests the burials were made within years or decades of one another, and it is that pattern the paper’s title calls funerary behaviour. Popular Science notes, however, that the cave’s reputation for early Neanderthal ritual does not by itself mean this individual received a ritual burial.

Why the researchers say sharpened wood and not stone

The team argues the shape of the hole is the clue. A flint or stone tip would leave a flat or angular opening, according to the release, and Popular Science reports that the tiny mineral fragments a stone point would leave were not found. The 15 millimeter perforation, about 0.6 inch, is nearly circular, with bevelling around its edge that the authors read as the exit side of a wound.

From the damage, the researchers reconstruct a spear entering the front of the left chest and travelling downward, through a lung and probably major arteries, before reaching the scapula. Bone fragments recovered from the sediment let them partly rebuild the hole. They then compared it with holes made by recreated spears of the period, which Pomeroy described as “an excellent fit,” adding that “that early technology absolutely works for this wound.”

The authors read the position and force as the marks of “an intended kill shot directed towards the heart,” in Pomeroy’s words, and think death was probably quick.

How much of this is proven

The wording is cautious. The release says the death “may” be the earliest known wooden-spear attack in the hominin record, and the attribution rests on the shape of the hole, because no spear was found with the remains. Wood rots, and older wooden weapons survive only in rare conditions: the spears from Schöningen, Germany, are about 200,000 years old, and the oldest known rounded wooden spear, over 400,000 years old, survives only as a pointed tip found at Clacton-on-Sea, England, in 1911.

So the new find is not the oldest wooden spear. The claim is that it is the oldest evidence of one used against another hominin, and possibly the first evidence of sharpened wooden spears in the prehistoric Middle East.

Pomeroy also leaves room for an accident. Large animals were hunted at close range with thrusting spears, so a hunting mishap cannot be ruled out, though she points to the wound’s position and the force needed as hints of deliberate violence. The researchers think the most straightforward reading is violence between Neanderthals, without excluding modern humans. Other outlets, among them The National and Nautilus, have framed the find as a possible murder, a label the evidence cannot settle.

A life of injury and care

The spear was not the only injury. One incisor had split lengthways and nearby teeth were rotated inward, which the researchers read as a heavy blow to the face. Tartar on the exposed root shows the tooth stayed in the mouth for a long time afterward, so Shanidar A lived at least a year, perhaps longer, with that injury. Pomeroy said this was “clearly an individual who was cared for during their lifetime,” and the team suggests others may have supplied soft food.

It echoes earlier Shanidar finds. The release recalls Ralph Solecki’s 1950s excavations, which recovered ten individuals, and a later Neanderthal with a paralysed arm, arthritis, deafness and partial blindness who lived a long life, implying care. What nobody can say is who threw the spear, or why.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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