After reading Jenny's blog on elephant mourning after death, it got me to thinking about animal mourning and how they react to the death of those close to them. Her blog post can be checked out here.
It is so touching to me to read stories like these - I think because we as humans are able to feel such similar things at times. It highlights that it's a natural process, and that death (particularly the death of a loved one), can be so challenging for anyone and anything!
On a personal note, a family member of mine used to travel up island frequently. He told a story about wolves (who, supposedly, almost mate for life) - one of whom was killed on the road sometime around when he was driving up island. Most of the times he's driven up since, for months afterwards, one of the wolves hung around the place where the other died, in mourning. So precious, and so sad!
Although Neanderthals are certainly a different story, I think that the topic of animal mourning can relate to our research of our case study/final project. For my portion of the project, I looked into intentionality or evidence of purpose when it came to Neanderthal burials and the way they may have treated their dead. Although it was impossible to be sure whether they did bury their dead intentionally or not, I still feel that it is most definitely a possibility. Arguments had been put forward that Neanderthals didn't have the brain capacity to reason as humans do, or to make meaningful associations. This was transferred to the assumption that they then wouldn't have had funerary practices such as placing meaningful objects with their dead or purposefully disposing of their dead. I have to disagree - if care for the dead can be seen in many animal communities as well as in humans, the possibility that Neanderthals did as well has to be looked further into.
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