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Oldest Homo Species Burial?: A Discussion of New Findings and Human Burial Practices - Ep 161
3.4k Plays1 year ago
In this episode of A Life in Ruins, Connor, Carlton, and David discuss the new Homo naledi findings in South Africa, and their implications on modern anthropology.
After discussing the articles a bit in depth, they quickly segway to other burial practices and hominid behaviors.
The episode ends with personal, cultural experiences around death and funerals.
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Transcripts
For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/ruins/161
Links
- 2001 Social Memory, Identity, and Death: An Introduction by Meredith Chesson
- 2023 Evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo naledi by Berger et al. In Press.
- 2021 Earliest known human burial in Africa by Martinon-Torres et al.
- 2018 Who First Buried the Dead? by Paige Madison
- YouTube - Homo Naledi - New Questions On Human Evolution by Stefan Milo
More links and literature recommendations at the A Life in Ruins page for this episode.
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Anecdote
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:07
Speaker
Welcome to episode 161 of a Life Ruins podcast. Re-investigate the careers and research of those living life ruins. I'm your host, Carlton Gover, and I'm joined by my co-host, Connor Johnen and David Howe. For this week's episode, we are joined by our regular guest, Depression. Now with that being said... Did I ever tell you guys the story of my dad when I was talking to him, updating? He's like, how's Carlton? And I kind of updated them and he was like, man, the three of you have just terrible luck with women.
00:00:51
Speaker
All right.
Introduction to Homo Naledi and Burial Practices
00:00:53
Speaker
We are going to talk about speaking of being dead inside today. We're going to talk about evidence for deliberate burials. My home on a lady today, we'll be about burial practices, mortuary things, ossuaries, home is like, that's all good guys. Okay. Yeah.
00:01:02
Speaker
can join us at our other podcast, how to be bad with women.
00:01:19
Speaker
I mean, this is just Wednesday for me, like we're all. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. That was great. Yeah. Homo naledi. Apparently, according to recent research that has come out by Lieberger and Associates. It is Berger and Associates, isn't
Significance of Homo Naledi's Burial Practices
00:01:40
Speaker
it? Yeah. Yeah. For some reason, I thought that was a Bob's Burgers joke.
00:01:46
Speaker
I don't know why, I'm sorry. There's probably some in there. Probably. Yes, by Berger et al. 2023, evidence for deliberate burial of the dead by Homo Naledi.
00:01:58
Speaker
This is a big deal for a number of reasons. As anthropology is, topics are often debated, sometimes violently. But the concept of intentional burials by the genus Homo is one of those. And so even when it comes to just talking about did Homo nanotelensis bury their dead is a hotly debated topic. What was that species name? What was that species name you just said there?
Homo Naledi in the Hominin Family Tree
00:02:27
Speaker
Homo sapiens anaphylensis. There you go. That's right. It's got the plus the fucking chair over your head. But Homo naledi is older in the Homo tree. It's older, but it's not like, like Homo erectus was making fire a million years ago and flint knapping. So 300,000 years ago is not that big a deal to me, at least. I'm trying to figure out where the hell it is on the family tree. You know who does know?
00:02:54
Speaker
who's, who's made a whole video on Homo Naledi. North O2. Our buddy, Stefan Mila. Don't tell him he's on the phone. He might not answer. We were talking about sushi earlier, so you might think it's about that. Hey, Stefan, how you doing, man?
00:03:17
Speaker
It's going well. I had got my sushi fixed the other day. I bought something that was, it said it was like fried salmon, but it, it wasn't, it was weird, but I have a question for you that's related to anthropology. Yeah. So Homo. I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm just about to join a zoom meeting. I'm so sorry. Yes. Homo Naledi. How old is it? Like two to 300,000, I think two to 300, 300,000, I think. Okay. In Africa.
00:03:45
Speaker
Perfect. What makes them different from other homo species? What makes them different is that it's a late survival of small brain hominins. We figured they'd basically all died out with the evolution of homo erectus. That big brain hominins would replace all small brain hominins because we're big and we're smart and big brains, blah, blah, blah. Then first homophiloresiensis was found.
00:04:09
Speaker
which is small-brained. But that was sort of excused away because they're so on a small island in Indonesia, and we were like, oh, well, big-brained hominins still dominated everywhere else. Homo naledi is a small-brained hominin in South Africa, sort of right in the cradle of where humans evolved, and seemingly survived for well over a million years after the evolution of homo erectus.
Interview with Stefan Mila on Homo Naledi
00:04:35
Speaker
He's about to do a Zoom call about this with somebody.
00:04:47
Speaker
chilling in South Africa for ages after Homo erectus evolves. Awesome. Did you read that new paper that came out about them bearing their dead? Yeah. Well, it's just a preprint, right? I've been keeping up with that. I haven't read the preprint itself, but that basically argued that they may have buried that dead. Well, sounds good. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I'll let you get back to that Zoom call. Yeah. All right. Take it easy. Bye, Stefan.
00:05:19
Speaker
Connor put in the chat while that was happening is why is he so much better than us? Off the cuff, man, and did it all like that. It's, it's impressive. The one that was Stephanie low. Yeah. All right. So 200 to 300,000 years ago.
00:05:38
Speaker
Yeah. And kind of like I was saying, like Homo erectus had been long established by then. And I guess to sum up what Stefan was saying is like, there's still like this small branch of like australopithe... or australopitheine? I guess that's the word I'm looking for. Like a lineage that's still going on there and that's what Naledi is. So to me, like if there's Homo erectus making fire, we know Homo erectus had fire a million years ago. So Homo Naledi could have been like, you know, monkey seeing monkey
Discovery and Access of Homo Naledi Site
00:06:07
Speaker
doing that.
00:06:08
Speaker
Why don't we all just author a show to put the scenes hanging out? I would say we're all homo erectus hanging out. Oh, oh, oh, yes. Yes. This is found in one cave in like a super intense cave system in in South Africa. So this is like the really only known instance of Naledi was kind of hit the scene. Was it like two or three years ago? It was this kind of new kind of. Yeah, they found it in 2013, but it kind of dropped two years ago, a year ago.
00:06:37
Speaker
Yeah. So discovered in Dinoletti Chamber of the Rising Star Cave System in South Africa. During an expedition led by Lee Berger beginning October 2013, in November of 2013, in March 2014, over 1,550 specimens from at least 15 Homo noletti individuals were recovered from this site. Interesting note that he could only take really small people into the cave. Like he had to employ like a bunch of
00:07:03
Speaker
like smaller gentlemen and smaller women, because it was such a tight fit to get back into these areas. I don't know if there's like a documentary out there, but there's some really cool articles about that kind of stuff. So yeah, this is
Challenging Beliefs with Homo Naledi Discoveries
00:07:14
Speaker
this is a big thing. And if they are indeed burying their dead, it changes a lot and really kind of challenges. Some of our thoughts about the earliest human burial practices, which we I think we associate with like probably what? Homo neanderthal in this?
00:07:29
Speaker
or Homo sapiens. And yeah, definitely Homo sapiens intercalensis. Definitely associated with them because it gets wrapped up. We want to really talk about two major things.
00:07:42
Speaker
identity, care, well, maybe not two major things, but definitely like care of another individual or altruism and then concepts of the dev or the afterlife. Usually these concepts are really looked at between Neanderthals and almost sapiens sapiens. Yeah. And so it's highly debated whether Neanderthals did it. There's limited evidence, which we'll talk to talk about in a bit, nothing else beyond that.
00:08:09
Speaker
of intentional, like buried or placed burials like this. Yeah. Cause like elephants obviously have burial grounds and stuff like that. Other animals do too. And like,
00:08:20
Speaker
chimps kind of mourn their dead. They don't really bury them, but they like easily older hominids could have just been like, you know, not a scaffold burial, I guess, but just left them somewhere and like cried and then left. I don't know. Yeah. It's entirely possible. Let me read the abstract real quick. If I'm allowed to read in this podcast anymore.
00:08:42
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so this is for the Burger article. So, recent excavations in the rising star cave system of South Africa have revealed burials of the extinct hominin species Homo naledi. A combination of geological and anatomical evidence shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains of Homo naledi individuals.
00:09:06
Speaker
resulting in at least two discrete features within the De Naledi chamber and the Hale anti-chamber. These are the most ancient interments yet recorded in the hominin record earlier than evidence of Homo sapiens interments by at least 100,000 years. These interments, along with other evidence, suggest that diverse mortuary practices may have been conducted by Homo Naledi within the cave system. These discoveries show that mortuary practices were not limited to
00:09:32
Speaker
Homo sapiens or other hominins with large brain size. Yeah. So pretty big stuff. Yeah. But I don't mean to diminish the.
00:09:43
Speaker
the paper, but this Arizona grad, I can't remember his name, him and I were talking. Yeah. Oh, what's his name? Great guy. Awesome. We text. I forget his name right now. Him and I were talking at the water screens one day and like somebody was asking us about human evolution. And I just said, like, I don't know if he'd agree with this, do Rob. That's his name. It's like, I don't know if you hear this Rob, but like, I think we're all just mutant homo erectus, like Dennis Ovens, Neanderthals, modern humans. And we're all just.
00:10:13
Speaker
some evolution of Homo erectus that got regionalized and then interbred. And he was like, no, absolutely. Like it's just the easiest way to think of it. So if that's going on and like this Naledi thing is definitely not an offshoot of Homo erectus, it's, I don't know, it's a different branch. I'd have to see like the tree, but to my understanding.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah, but you can look at a million different trees. I don't think that's the one thing I fucking can't stand about paleoanthropology. Look up a human tree. All of them are different. No one can agree. Didn't we do a whole episode on lumpers and splitters and stuff like that? We did, but it's like when you go from canto to Johto and you're like, wait, so there's a primal form of Pikachu that was called Pichu and no one in canto figured that out for hundreds of years, but you just cross this waterfall and go across to Johto.
00:10:58
Speaker
There's a baby Pikachu? Like, what? I just love how you have that, like, keyed up and ready to go. Aren't there two more before Pichu, too, because there's the Minus one and the Plus one?
00:11:11
Speaker
and that's in another region like there's a pre jigglypuff there's a togepi like well no they figured out togepi how did they not know that pokemon laid eggs in the first one professor oak was the shittiest professor of all time and then they went and then there's professor elm and he was like hey these things actually breed and make eggs and like
00:11:29
Speaker
despite some of them being mammals and despite most of them being reptiles or dinosaurs. So anyway, it's like that. Homo naledi is like crossing into Johto or later on when they have Pokemon X and Y, they have a whole other just area of the world where no one was in contact with the other, with new Pokemon species, 500 of them that are just not, were not in the original Pokemon game.
00:11:54
Speaker
Yeah, there hasn't been enough time and this stuff study enough to really do the genetics and things like that. This is going to take years and years to kind of flesh out exactly where this comes from. Same with the Denisovans or Denisovans, that information is so sparse and so small that like we need like a bigger sample size. And that's also some beef I have with paleoanthropology is that the sample size on this shit is like not significant even remotely.
00:12:21
Speaker
All I could think of after David's Pokémon comparison was that scene from Billy Madison. Mr. How, what he have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I've ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response for even close to anything that could have been considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
00:12:43
Speaker
I respectfully disagree. That was a good analogy for people who play Pokemon. But no, that is funny. I never seen really nice it actually. I don't think I finished the whole thing. It's one of those shows that movies that pops on like, you know, Comedy Central or FX or something. I just never like fully watched it. Kind of like Terminator or any of those. Okay. I'm looking at a thing. Where is Homo Naledi on this bad boy? Homo Naledi is an offshoot of Homo habilis.
00:13:09
Speaker
I don't know.
00:13:24
Speaker
amount of individuals in Africa outside of Homo sapiens. Like in terms of like this site is peculiar for a number of reasons. What I am interested in then, as we were talking, looking at the publications and who did this, right, as we talked about when it comes to paleoanthropology from a number of our paleoanthropologists have come on about the paleoanthropia, like do we think our boy burger is
00:13:47
Speaker
Like this is his gatekeeping possibly as well. I don't know. I'm just throwing that out there. He's, he found the site. Cause there's like, you can only have tiny people go in there into the caves and he had to lose 55 pounds to fit in there himself. It said good for him.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, he probably had to like starve himself to get that skinny to get in there. I don't know what he looks like in general, but I probably seen his face, but anyway, regardless, like they took plenty of pictures. It looks like though. So what you see there is what you get, but it is, I could see how some people might find it gate KP that like, you know, only 12 people have been in here to see it.
00:14:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think they extracted that stuff. It seems like top tier science to me. Yeah, and they have published all their figures and methods and stuff like that. So if you do check out the article, eventually when it comes out, it's 133 pages full of figures and different sort of analysis and stuff like that.
00:14:43
Speaker
I
Geological Evidence for Burial Practices
00:14:44
Speaker
do respect them for that. I mean, there probably is an element of Mafia involved just because he's a high profile name and he probably gets some sort of preferential treatment in publishing and things like that. I wouldn't doubt that at all, but we'd like to think it's good science. But we'll, I think the jury is still out on that. And I think this little segment here is out too. So we will be right back.
00:15:08
Speaker
And welcome back to episode 161 of a life romance podcast. We're continuing to talk about the recent burials or suggested burials at Naledi and the Naledi, De Naledi Chamber. De Naledi, I don't know. De Naledi. Where is that at, David? Yeah, De Naledi. De Naledi. What would you call that area? Oh, South Africa. Cradle of ****.
00:15:35
Speaker
I don't think it's shut up. It did a little bit. We're trying all the new things here on the podcast. Absolutely. Do we have anything to add about to that, the Naledi specific? We probably should talk about the individual burials themselves or why they think they're burials. We can also talk about the fact that there's symbolic culture in there too. That's pretty big.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, let's hit the symbolic culture after what makes them burials and not just random. There wasn't some sort of geological event that just covered up a bunch of dead Naledians. For them, pulling this up, they talk about how the
00:16:19
Speaker
Is it the spacing of them? It's like the, it's the way that they're in the ground suggests that they're consistent with intentional burials. The hominins abstract shows that hominins dug holes that disrupted the subsurface stratigraphy and interred the remains. So it's not saying a burial. It's just saying that they interred them. It's very worded.
00:16:41
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, the important thing is that the sediment and stuff like that and the surrounding areas suggest that there is internment, there is stuff being buried apart from that. So if an individual just died there, you would expect zero disturbance.
00:16:56
Speaker
in terms of the sediments, et cetera. But you can, in this case, have a defined additional layer or changes between previous layers that shows that there was digging happening and mixing as part of this. So that's kind of, I think that's their big thing, looking at the soil stratigraphy and stuff like that, which is important because I mean, that's how we define burials and features, et cetera. Is that what you're reading of this is Carlton?
00:17:27
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I'd buy it, I mean.
00:17:29
Speaker
Yeah. And they're not just, they're, it's clearly more than just laid there. Yeah. Yeah. Which would suggest like the earliest known form of treatment of the dead in genus Homo. Yeah. Now I think I talk about this or I mean, I know I talk about this in my lecture, but at the end, let's talk about like, cause like it's a significant leap in time when we start burying ourselves. But then also I would argue when you start burying dogs, cause you're extending that idea of humanity onto another like
00:17:59
Speaker
creature. But before I like go into that, I was saying like, you know, you got to bury people. Like when they're dead, you get sad. So you got to bury people. But you got to bury them six feet deep because hanging as I dug them up or like wolves or whatever. And then after that, that's going to become like a practice. And then around, that's going to become a ritual. And then it's a habit thing that you make. And that's going to lead to like an afterlife type thing.
00:18:24
Speaker
So it's pretty complicated. At least that's my idea of how that evolution goes in like the human brain. But this just shows that it was going on long before that. And maybe they just never figured out to bury them six feet deep until Neanderthals kind of thing or like her humans, you know, very deep enough. Yeah. Yeah. But the six feet burial is very specific to certain cultures too.
00:18:48
Speaker
Sure. I guess not exactly six feet, but you know what I mean? Like they, they buried him, buried him. Yeah. Cause there's also like sky burials practice across the world. And like we would never be able to tell. Exactly. So they could be doing that. Yeah. There's a bunch of different forms. Like in terms of like interring people in the ground, archeologists will find them. Now, if there's a different sort of like ritualistic treatment of the dead that won't be identifiable, archeologist is absolutely possible.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah. Like we could have, we could be seeing it earlier in like Austral piss and stuff like that. But this is just the perfect storm where these, these things are buried in a cave. I also think it's interesting, David, what you're talking about, like, so you have these, these patterns to become ritual, become habits. And then there's like the diffusion of that too, which I think is super interesting because like, cause it's all going to culturally differ. Yeah.
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah. So it can start from one place or it can be discovered independently or compared and changed as cultures interact, humans interact. It's kind of a, I think that's a really interesting idea. And you wonder that why you don't see it in like home homo erectus, right? Yeah. And I would, I would argue homo erectus was just so mobile getting out of Africa all the way to almost Australia that they just didn't have time for that. Like.
00:20:06
Speaker
or they do something like sky burials or something like that. Yeah. Cause I mean, like the amount of time it takes to actually, actually bury someone and the investment in that might be too difficult. Yeah. I just dropped dead where they are, pissed on him and leave. I don't think they pissed on him. I don't think there's any evidence. In all of the 2 million years of homo erectus being around one pissed on a dead body. That's an archeological fact.
00:20:41
Speaker
Well, it is interesting that I still think, I mean, before this, our, our best proof of human burial or homo sapien burial is Neanderthals, which is really interesting. Maybe they aren't moving as far as Homo erectus and spreading and et cetera, and have time and are in caves and have the ability to do that. But it's what, what kind of fuels that and where does that begin from is a kind of interesting topic.
00:20:58
Speaker
You guys stung by a jellyfish. Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. And then it could also be like only certain individuals were awarded that right kind of thing or kind of like a pyramid. Like only Khufu or Tutankhamun can get a pyramid. Other people just get thrown in the ditch. Yeah. I mean, the concept of Neanderthals bearing their dead has been around since 1908. It's controversial. Very much. So it, they discovered a fairly complete Neanderthal skeleton near La Chapel aux Saints in France.
Neanderthal Burial Practices
00:21:42
Speaker
Thank you, David. And so even then it was like laid in a fetal position safely covered up from the elements they suggest. But because it was done in 1908, critics and skeptics have said they've done it sloppily.
00:21:55
Speaker
The argument continues to this day, but the fact, but it was, it was a burning question in 1908. And remember they found the first homo-nandertal sapien dandertalicin skeleton in 1856 in the Nandert Valley. So like just over 50 years after the first one was found, they're like, Oh, they were burying their dead. That was a, that was a big deal. There have been other Nandertal burials.
00:22:17
Speaker
And you could trace that questioning about that to like the initial thoughts about Neanderthals as big dumb brutes and not being able to associate them with sort of complex culture and things like that. So I do think we have like, and as we'll kind of talk about,
00:22:33
Speaker
We have some better evidence now that suggests that they are burying it. So La Chapelle, all science was the first one, but the most intense and kind of extensive burials, yeah, is at Shanadar Cave, which is in Iraq, I believe. Just northeast of Mosul. Right on the motherfucking civilization.
00:22:57
Speaker
And that one, Stefan, our friend that Carlton has on speed dial is, I hope, just don't tell him he was on the episode. He did a video on this. And like, if you want to look at the video, you can get it. Torey drew a representation of this individual. His eye was bashed in dude. Like he, like the orbit was just destroyed.
00:23:19
Speaker
Uh, he was missing an arm and he had some other like ailments. And like we were saying in the interim that like he was just Steve, the pirate probably had a bag, leg, eye patch, but also his teeth were like messed up, I think. So he was being cared for and fed because he was likely blind in that eye at least.
00:23:34
Speaker
Maybe both. Yeah. And that's sharing our one is the individual we're talking about. Okay. Yeah. And there's five others that are associated with this six others. Maybe so, but it is interesting. Yeah. This severe signs of deformity on him, worn teeth. Like this dude's walking around with like a fucked up limp. Like it's kind of wild.
00:23:57
Speaker
Yeah. So, there's several nanotoll burials. These are intentional burials. Shenedar was discovered in 1960. The most famous one
00:24:08
Speaker
of these burials was what's called Shenandoah 4, and that has been nicknamed the Flower Burial. And the reason why that was is through soil samples taken from the surrounding area of that individual, revealed pockets of pollen. And the person, Dr. Ralph Selecke, leader of the team and anthropologist at Columbia University,
00:24:29
Speaker
He saw that this evidence of pollen was like they put flowers around the barrel, and that's where that has come from. And that is also hotly debated. And I just learned this today because when we're talking about it in the interim, David's like, well, I know a professor that doesn't agree with that, so I started looking into it. Turns out, basically, the pollen surrounding Shenandoah 4 was shown to have been transported by burrowing rodents. It was Crotovino. Yeah, the rodents.
00:24:58
Speaker
removing the pollen around. So that idea of the flower burial has allegedly collapsed.
00:25:04
Speaker
But also there, you know, at Raka Fett Cave at Mount Carmel in Israel, that was actually they were placed in a flower lined grave and the double burial and actually the individuals are separated. One's 11,700 and the other is 13,700. I don't know if that's for both of them. That's clearly in range of like totally normally normal at that time.
00:25:31
Speaker
Yeah. Because the one with the dog is 10,000 years old. Mm-hmm. And dogs have been around for 30,000 years? Genetically 20, but I would say 30, yeah. Okay. But Neanderthals have definitely been bearing their dead. And the reason why this matters is we kind of talked about it's like this idea of identity, thinking about the afterlife, and there's this really good
00:25:54
Speaker
explanation of, if I can find the damn thing, why an analysis of mortuary rituals provides a richly textured medium for which ethnographers and archeologists can examine the crafting of social memory. It's in a book that many people probably heard of, Social Memory, Identity, and Death, Anthropological Perspectives of Mortuary Rituals, edited by Meredith S. Cheson.
00:26:19
Speaker
That came out in 2001, so there's probably more modern stuff out. But generally, when you look at the dead, you're looking at, as David talked about, everyone else kind of coming to grips with it, but it also goes into forms of identity, like how you bury your dead matters for how you believe in the afterlife and your personhood. So it means a lot that Homo naledi is potentially burying their dead or entering their dead.
00:26:42
Speaker
in some way. Yeah. And that kind of hands out the complexity of, of, of their culture or whatever it is. Cause I think that's, that's what we associate with kind of complex culture is this, this burial practices, et cetera. Yeah. By the way, if you're listening to this and you like Stefan, we're not going to tell Stefan while I was on the podcast, we rely on you to email him and be like, Hey, I really liked your guest appearance. And if it's a one 61 podcast,
00:27:08
Speaker
If you do that and BCC us, you'll get a sticker on that email. Did Carlton, did you find that thing you were looking for? Yeah, I have it. Okay.
00:27:19
Speaker
I'll just read it. From an archeological perspective, mortuary practices represent the complex interplay of emotions, material culture, and social memories of the mourners and the deceased in the past, testimony by the material remains of these ceremonies, namely grave goods, skeletal remains, and funerary structures. From ethnographic accounts, we know that mortuary rituals provide a sensuous arena in which the dead are mourned.
00:27:43
Speaker
Social memories are created and reasserted. Social bonds are renewed, forged or broken, and individuals make claims for individual identities and group memberships. Both ethnographic and archaeological studies clearly illustrate the intensely complex interplay between people's identities, emotions, experiences, and desires, the multiple webs of social structures, and the use of material culture in primary and secondary mortuary practices. So that is from Social Memory, Identity, and Death, an introduction by Meredith S. Chesson, University of Notre Dame, as of 2001.
00:28:13
Speaker
Choose day. I thought you were talking about some like Szechuan chicken or something. What sort of, sort of. Cause that's like uniquely human. I mean, fundamentally, when we talk about bearing the debt, we all, we all, regardless of where we're at right now, if you're a lone Cossack listener, you know, how we bury the dead is a very personal, but group bonding experience. And we all know what goes on with the funeral.
00:28:42
Speaker
And the practice. Yeah. Yeah. Like I know, like, I mean, for me, I know to expect from like, when one of my Pawnee relative dies, I know what needs to happen for a Pawnee funeral versus like someone on my mom's side or by non-indigenous friends. Like those are two different practices and how we engage. Like Jewish side of my family funerals, you always put a rock on the grave and you, everyone takes a turn throwing dirt on it. And then there's like a, a kiddish is what it's called. It's like the prayer that a rabbi reads.
00:29:11
Speaker
I've actually only been to Jewish funerals. I don't think I've been to... No, I went to my grandpa's. He was Christian. Is Sheba involved in that too? Or what's a... Are you sitting? You can sit... Oh yeah, I guess the practice is sitting, Shiva. It's like you sit with the body for three days. I don't know if it's to make sure originally if hyenas don't eat it. I don't know. There's probably a rabbinical purpose for it that I never went to Hebrew school.
00:29:36
Speaker
our family just being New York, Seinfeld Jews, just instead of sitting Shiva, went to a diner, hung out together. But yeah, no Shiva, but that's definitely a thing. And that's an old-ass tradition too, like Judaism's old.
00:29:53
Speaker
Think that it's interesting. I've been to like Catholic Funerals, I've been to kind of more Anglican Presbyterian Etc. And there is like these this kind of spectrum of stuff that is done in certain practices I kind of like the New Age version where we just like get drunk and Hang out with your friends and talk shit about way. Yeah. Yeah Just have a good time. I think that's interesting. But that does
00:30:22
Speaker
I was super shocked when I was young to go to a Catholic funeral and have the open casket sort of thing was shocking to me as a six-year-old or seven-year-old. I never did an open casket thing.
00:30:37
Speaker
Yeah, it's freaky. My grandfather's funeral, my dad's dad, he was a Mason. So like all of like the Mason, like the Masonic lodge of like New York was there. I don't know if it was all of the state of New York or just where he was, but they have their own funerary practices that I was, that was the funeral I saw. And I was like, Oh, damn, my grandpa was like legit, but my uncle's a Mason too. My, my native grandfather had a Masonic.
00:31:07
Speaker
aspect to his, it was bonkers. Like his funeral was like Pawnee Masonic, and then also had a little bit of Southern Baptist into it. And there was also the veteran stuff there. So there was, there was a lot of different social groups at play. Ooh, that's wild. Yeah. There was like a lot of different like rituals. Now they think about us, they have the politics, like, holy shit. Like, yeah, there was a lot of different social contexts in which people had to do things. We had someone standing on our guard. There was this 21 gun salute. Yeah. There was a, there was a lot.
00:31:36
Speaker
I don't know if he was the first Native American in the Masonic Church, or in the Masonic, in the Masons. Order, whatever. Yeah, it's Scottish Rite, I think is what my grandfather and my uncle were. Well, it's because my grandmother was in the Order of the Rose, so I'm pretty sure that she got him in. Because the Order of the Rose is the female version. Anyways, we're totally off topic. We'll get back to more more Troy practice in the archaeological record right after these messages.
00:32:01
Speaker
Welcome back to episode 161, talking about mortuary practices of homos and modern homos. Um, I mean, it's, it's the truth guys grow up while you're laughing.
00:32:15
Speaker
It's 2023. Marriage is legal between same sexes. It's cool. You know, you're a professor. Well, like what's going on over here, Carlson? What I was going to ask was Connor, I cut you off last time. You said you went to Catholic funerals. That's what you've been to and it's open casket.
00:32:42
Speaker
Yeah, I've only been to one Catholic funeral and it was open casket. What do you think that practice exists? I don't know the actual origins of it. I guess you can tell the person's there. I guess it's like a recognition of death.
00:32:58
Speaker
staring at it kind of thing. It's also weird that we, they don't do open caskets when they do like death of monarchs and stuff like that. They just have them sitting at least the ones we know of. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you got them all by a bear, I guess you're not doing an open casket, you know? So it says in most cases, the body present at a vigil. Often Catholics prefer an open casket to allow loved ones to see the person who's died at a final time before burial. So that's probably probably why I've seen mostly Catholic ones and like also Pawnee ones are generally open casket.
00:33:29
Speaker
I don't want to throw anyone on the bus because I know my tippo listens to this. There was an instance in which someone said, we don't touch or see the body. We also touched the dead. That was something that was instilled. You touched them to say goodbye, rub their chest specifically with their heart. You just say goodbye just so they can feel touched. But there was an instance where someone was like, yeah, we don't do that.
00:33:53
Speaker
And that's when I realized like, Oh, this person is Pawnee, but there's also another tribe, a tribe that doesn't, that has very strict cultural taboos. Then I saw like, no, that's not a Pawnee practice. This is your other practice coming in. It was alarming for me because it was a practice in which it was predominantly Pawnee's. So that was a whole thing. Interesting.
00:34:14
Speaker
It is interesting, especially because when we have multiple cultural identities now, putting together the certain burial practices is really interesting. As a Pawnee person, also of another culture as well, how do you do that properly? It seems tough.
00:34:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's like one of those things it's like, cause I think about it cause it's also the same as like marriage and like Mack and Emily did both weddings. They had Indian wedding and Pine Ridge and then they had where they were married by a pipe and then they had white wedding in Portland.
00:34:45
Speaker
So maybe it just depends on, I mean, I'm going to be fucking dead, but I mean, I guess most people put this kind of stuff in their wills. Like my goddamn father, like for his funerary music wants fucking jingle bells. Like he wants Christmas music. It's his ideas. I want people to feel jolly. I'm like, fuck you. You're going to ruin December for me for the rest of my life. No, because it would be immediately brought back to your funeral asshole.
00:35:10
Speaker
Yeah. That should be so stipulation as long as it's like, as long as he dies in like December or something, if it's in the Christmas season, I think that's appropriate. And maybe it's a Michael Buble version or something. Mariah Carey is like one that we all want to die. But that's another aspect of like, Pawnee funerals are like, not necessarily happy, but there's a lot more joking and it's jovial because we're happy that they're back with the stars. They're like, people are sad at points, but like generally it's not the same strict,
00:35:35
Speaker
Be quiet, be respectful. We're making fun of the dead person. We're making fun of each other. We're telling those stories that are embarrassing that they can't defend because they're no longer around. That's kind of the vibe. It's throwing them right. It's different. Yeah. I'd rather go to a pony funeral because it's a fun time. Fun time is not necessarily the right word. It's not as
00:35:56
Speaker
I don't leave those funerals feeling melancholic, remorseful. I'm not yearning for that, but I'm not like, oh my God, that person's going to never see them. I feel like, okay, they've moved on. It's a way different vibe. When I go to a Catholic funeral, I'm like,
00:36:10
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's just sad. God has them now. It's in God's hands. It's like, it's really different. Like it feels like they've been ripped from me. I don't know. I think maybe this is just me, but it feels like they're, they're, they've been removed from my life whereas then upon a funeral, they feel like they've moved on to their next journey. If that makes any sense. Like there's just very different contexts of the death.
00:36:30
Speaker
The other two funerals I went to, one of them was my uncle, my great uncle Harvey, he fought at Iwo Jima, or he was an anti-aircraft gunner in Iwo Jima, so I don't know if he, that meant he was shooting, was there an air fight at Iwo Jima? I don't know.
00:36:46
Speaker
I think there were, it was very limited cause by Elo midway was over the sea was over that they shelled the fuck out of that Island. So yeah, he was doing something like that. Anyway, I went to his, when I was a kid, they buried him in New Jersey. No one wants to go to New Jersey, but I had to go for that. And then they put him in the ground. There's a rabbi, but my other,
00:37:09
Speaker
My mom's uncle died a few years ago in Florida and we went down there and he was in the army during the Korean War. And he was in, I think he was in East Germany or West Germany, I should say. And, uh, but there's someone playing taps like a, an army guy.
00:37:28
Speaker
And then like they gave my aunt Jane like the flag and like that's a tradition too. Like just a simple funeral when they put him in like a little, the standing, like he was cremated and it was just one of those standing graves with like a bunch of graves. You put it in there.
00:37:46
Speaker
on a mausoleum but mausoleum yeah but like the newer newer iteration of it where it's just yeah it looks like a male cubby like it was just put in there but like PO box yeah i was like all right this is chill but yeah so like that's cool i think that's the only military funeral i've been to but yeah
00:38:05
Speaker
When taps is played, it's always like kind of emotional and like, you know, my aunt was crying and the daughter was crying. My grandfather was, was buried in Fort Logan in Denver. And it was interesting because yeah, they did the same thing. They did taps. They did the 21.
00:38:19
Speaker
gun salute. He was in the Air Force for a little bit. I think he was stationed in Germany, Korean War stuff. But it was really interesting because they almost had that process down like a well-oiled machine. It was regimented, yeah. Yeah. Which I guess makes sense in a military context that it would be
00:38:39
Speaker
regimented because they had to do so many funerals for vets, you know, people, current military, et cetera, that they had to like push people through this. They were respectful and very kind to people during that time, but it was really interesting watching like the mechanics behind it. Yeah. Like they had to just keep this, keep this thing going because there's so many military vets that were being buried. Damn. Well oiled. Yeah, actually the funeral I went to last year, it was at the Long Island Jewish cemetery, I think is what it was called. And like,
00:39:09
Speaker
He got there and it was just a, just a constant carpool of cars coming through and they're like, are you with the Steinbergs? And I was like, yeah. And then like, they just push you through and like, they got, they got a lot of Jews to bury that day. So it's just like, it was just pushing through and pushing through. And I was like, damn, this is so like, what's the word? I wouldn't say disrespectful. It's just like, damn, there's an industry around burying people. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, they are on a schedule.
00:39:34
Speaker
I kind of like this new age version where people are cremated and they might not have a spot in a cemetery, et cetera, but it's just spreading the ashes. I think that's much more simple process and a much more personal process than like
00:39:50
Speaker
these kind of like big funerals. I don't know, that's just, I guess that's just personal opinion and I'm not very religious so it doesn't mean that much to me. My family's all buried on the same hill. Like for me that's kind of like the spot. There's four cemeteries in Pawnee for the four bands and so like my ancestors that died after the long walk are there. So like we're right next to each other. Although we had to go to tribal council, my uncle did a month or two ago, because people started encroaching on our hill.
00:40:19
Speaker
And there's like nothing technically against the rules, but my uncle's like, that's, that's our spot. At least get further. Cause you're starting to get like too close to us. And there's at least 36 that need to be buried next. So I mean, like we're going to be taking up some space up there, but I always liked the idea of that tree burial thing where they like wrap you up in a cocoon with the trees until Walmart buys the plot 50 years from now. I'm like, are we going to move these?
00:40:45
Speaker
Well, I think it's cool, Carlton, that you have that connection to family too, because I don't think there, I guess there is a place in my family that some people are buried. But if it's all in one Hill, I think that's, that's super cool and powerful to be all together there. And especially like a Naledi situation, like one fenced off area. Cause there's no markers, but though it's like, where it was like a, how much, how much considered a mass grade, but it's like a number of my family that died.
00:41:11
Speaker
very soon after getting there. And then there's also like, especially early res days with like infants not making it through. So like, there's a number of those. So like, there's this really clear, it kind of talks back like, why does NAGPRA matter and like death? Cause it's like, I have a place where I can see, well, this is, these people died because of the Dawes Act. These people died because of Indian removal. Like I can like go through the Indian laws and be like, I can see relatives that were fucking affected by this every time I go, Oh,
00:41:37
Speaker
You know what I mean? But even before that, when I was thinking archeologically about that concept of identity, people have heard me talk about the Central Plains tradition a number of times across Kansas and Nebraska. Same houses, same pots, everything, but there is a difference
00:41:53
Speaker
north of the Platte River, central plain tradition populations, buried people in ossuaries. So very much similar to like Woodlands where there's a mound, you threw people in it, covered up, another person dies, throw them on the mound, covered up, south of that line of cemeteries. So same people, but two very different concepts of dealing with the dead. So there's other ways that this matters. As you were saying, David, about the thing. No, no, no. That's like, I think that's cool. Like the bringing up the Mississippian mound building things and
00:42:19
Speaker
Yeah, like bound burials and then pyramid, like I don't think this, the Egyptian ones have actual bodies in them, but like, or at least all of them, like erecting a giant structure for somebody because of like the power they had and stuff is pretty cool. I mean, not for the people that didn't have power, but yeah. So Carlton, I got a question real quick. So they're the same cultural group, same cultural beliefs, but they just.
00:42:42
Speaker
No, no, I guess they're not the same cultural group out there. They're from the same family. I don't know how you describe them. Yeah, so it's all the Central Plains tradition, but there's a difference really in, like there's a couple minor differences, but to me, the biggest ones of identity are like, they're bearing, they're dead very different. Like the Southern style is like a more Mississippian nature, which kind of tracks with my research.
00:43:04
Speaker
But also, this really kind of looks to me early vestiges of differences between the Skidi Pawnee, which is what I am, that northern group of Vasuaries, and the southern group of Pawnees. We have different ceremony. We are kind of two different tribes mashed into one. And I think there's vestiges of those differences in our ancestral parts of Nebraska and Kansas. They were already doing something different.
00:43:29
Speaker
we were doing something different in terms of that identity piece. That's really interesting. That's a good question. But for those that are curious, the oldest known burial in the Americas is Anzac Child. Yeah, let's talk about that. I don't know much about it. Is there an indigenous name for Anzac? Because like for kind of like we have the ancient one, I don't know why I'm asking you to.
00:43:50
Speaker
Yeah. I don't think so, but it's, it's the only known Clovis age burial. So over 12,000 years ago, deliberately inter Montana, Montana, yeah. The Montana tribes have to have something for it. And I, it's probably another ancient one. I don't know the name of it. And this is, I'm going to get roasted, was found with points and ochre all over the place. So it was very intentional burial.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, but it's interesting that that is not causing as much controversy as say like Kenwick Mann or anything like that. I don't ever hear like Anzick brought up as part of these conversations of NAGPRA, etc. Maybe it's because they have good relations. It's interesting, but it's cool to see like the earliest Clovis folks are indeed bearing people with a really interesting artifacts, etc.
00:44:42
Speaker
Well, Anzick was pretty hot-headed because like the family kept, the Anzicks kept the remains. They were reburied and I think University of Wyoming was involved in so much shape or form, I want to say, but they were eventually reburied and they brought a bunch of Montana tribes together. It was its own thing, but there was controversy very much around it back in the day.
00:45:06
Speaker
Okay. Maybe it's just not as fresh as say Kennewick man or anything like that. Well, cause Kennewick was federal property. So like Anzac, like NACRA doesn't apply.
00:45:15
Speaker
to Anzick. Why not? But that did have a happy story because it was found on private property by private contractors, so not NAGPRA. And it wasn't kept in an institution. Basically, the family was like, we got a dead engine, child, and it's ours now. Gladys. And they kept it in their Montana ranch house. Gladys. I do remember seeing Anzick was reburied. Yeah, 2014. Multiple tribes took part of it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:45:43
Speaker
It was an intertribal ceremony, but the artifacts are, yeah, with the Montana Historical Society. So, which is kind of interesting. If they ever get federal funding, if they did during COVID. Yeah, it's going, that's, that's Knackford. Going back to Knackford. Knackford. It shouldn't be making fun of such a serious law because I thought we just finished the Knackford conference last week here at Bloomington and it was a shit show. Knackford's very serious and a very, very good law. Yeah, we've checked out other episodes on that.
00:46:13
Speaker
We mentioned just going back to the symbolic culture in the caves with Naledi and that's that's pretty big because symbolic culture doesn't really boom until like 50,000 years ago with humans 40,000 years ago And we always argue like are those Neanderthal dots is that is that culture is that not all that now Naledi's like
00:46:31
Speaker
the hashtag and stuff in the walls over there. And they're like hashtag sad. Speaking of those dots, I texted Emily Van Alts the other day about a recent paper that came out about how those like, what's his face, his red dots, shit, what's his name? Bernie.
00:46:48
Speaker
That's the main thing I talked about, that there's those early cave paintings with the abstract marks and stuff on early form of writing, and I sent it to Emily and she had things to say. Then I invited her on the podcast to talk about it, so she wants to come on and talk about this rock art research, because apparently rock art research is like the wild west of you could say whatever the fuck you want.
00:47:07
Speaker
But to that, what is symbolic culture? It might be a question for another podcast, boys. Yeah. I think it's just something like you can define as a definition. Yeah, just a definition. Like you can see it being symbolic in some way. I know it's a non-answerable. Symbolic culture or non-material culture is the ability to learn and transmit behavioral traditions from one generation to the next by the invention of things that exist entirely in the symbolic realm. That didn't fucking answer that. Yeah, that's a very modern.
00:47:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Social social construct kind of thing. However, some of it is the original symbolic culture of a merge. So, okay, cool. So yeah. Oh, so it's like Kate, like symbolic culture also represents cave paintings, drawings and things like that. Art.
00:47:52
Speaker
All right. Well, we'll revisit that on another episode. Thank you. This was a cool, this was a cool paper. Cause this came out and we were like, how do we talk about this? Like, well, we could talk about the death. I really wish I'd taken a class on death. I mean, that's bolder. There's like the archeology of death or something. It's like the most enrolled course. Well, also people could just attend the times we hang out together.
00:48:17
Speaker
Anyway, on that note, thank you for listening. If you have any questions about the Naledi burials and stuff, I would suggest you watch Zeke Darwin or at Sciences Reel on TikTok. He knows this stuff really well. My friend Isaac, or our friend Isaac, I should say.
00:48:34
Speaker
Uh, keep your eyes out. I don't know. I don't think you were, I was going to say also emails, Stefan Millo. Hello. It's Stefan, me load.com. Yeah. Tell him, we really, I really liked your guest appearance on episode one, six, one of life and ruins. B CCS in that email. So does it now? Just so please we'll send you a sticker. We'll end it. We'll reach out to you individually. Make sure we get that mailing address for that stick. Cause I, and we'll put.
00:49:02
Speaker
Great interview the podcast you know how to do it and yeah with that we're out we're out
00:49:15
Speaker
Thanks for listening to a life in ruins podcast. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at a life in ruins podcast. And you can also email us at a life in ruins podcast at gmail.com. And remember, make sure to bring your archaeologists in from the cold and feed them beer. And if you made it this far, Connor, what is your joke for us today? I just found out the grim reaper is pansexual.
00:49:37
Speaker
i'm gonna come death turns out death comes for us all do not come
00:50:04
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, Dig Tech LLC, Culturo Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Chris Webster. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.