Pollen! How could you lie to me!?

Today my romanticized vision of early funerary rituals was shattered. In my first post I even mentioned how the recovery of pollen in the Shanidar caves had largely contributed to my curiosity of mortuary practices in the archaeological record.

In class today, Erin explained that the Shanidar 4 remains found with pollen, that had previously been deemed as evidence of intentional burial, may actually be simple taphonomy - by rodents specifically.

Rats! Why did it have to be rats! I know one must be educated in possible taphonomic mimics when viewing human remains but I just so badly wanted the pollen depositions to mean intentional funeral!

Is there any chance the rats held a funeral for this individual? Seeing Secret of Nimh was enough to know rodents have their own culture...

image: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/the-secret-of-nimh/images/26107985/title/secret-nimh-wallpaper

I realize everything is open to interpretation, especially in Anthropology, but come on... I thought this one was cut and dried (flower joke - lol).

So... I looked into it. Who was this evil arachaeologist (is there just one, or do a bunch of people believe this?) who proposed such a logical explanation of the pollen!?

This is one article I pulled up... click here to read it.

According to Elspeth Ready, there was not a whole lot of information on taphonomy when the Shanidar remains were found (2010: 68). Well! That changes everything... So basically they're saying researchers jumped to conclusions and got excited and wanted SO badly for Neanderthals to have culture. A book was even published titled "Shanidar, the First Flower People" in 1971. THAT alone could mislead anyone. Ready paraphrases Trinkaus and Shipman (1993) as describing the Shanidar Neanderthals as being "behaviorally modern but anatomically primitive" (2010: 62). No ethical concerns with that statement *cough cough*.

Okay, so maybe the pollen was not athropogenic...

I think I just figured out how university works...

In first year they teach you a whole bunch of neat stuff. In fourth year they teach you to be critical and skeptical of everything you learned in first year - your goal becomes to disprove these first year fantasies.Can I have my degree now?

Works Cited:

Ready, E.  2010  Neandertal Man the Hunter: A History of Neandertal Subsistence. vis-à-vis: Exploration in Anthropology, 10(1).

Trinkaus, E. and Shipman, P.  1993  The Neandertals: Changing the image of mankind. New York: Jonathan Cape.