{"id":928,"date":"2016-04-12T07:00:13","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T07:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/animalpeopleforum.org\/beyondhuman\/?p=928"},"modified":"2016-04-12T07:00:13","modified_gmt":"2016-04-12T07:00:13","slug":"could-early-hominids-mourn-their-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/animalpeopleforum.org\/beyondhuman\/2016\/04\/12\/could-early-hominids-mourn-their-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"Could early hominids mourn their dead?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this Scientific American<\/em> article, “Debate Erupts Over Strange New Human Species,”<\/a> scientists express extreme skepticism over the notion that small-brained human ancestor Homo naledi<\/em> could have deliberately disposed of its dead (as proposed by researchers Paul Dirks et al. of James Cook University). My question is, why?\u00a0Why is it so difficult to believe early hominids with smaller brains than ours could have deliberately interred their dead? Elephants are well-known to mourn their dead, sometimes carrying or regularly visiting their bones for many years, and similar behavior has been recorded if not yet verified in many other non-human species with brains much smaller proportionately than our own. Our disproportionately large brains certainly convey their advantages, but a basic ability to miss the departed and want to ritualize their passing may not be one of them. In fact, the more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I wonder if the main perk of modern humans’ brain size is simply raw processing power, enhancing basic abilities inherited from our ancestors but not necessarily adding anything fundamentally new to our cognitive toolbox.<\/p><\/div>

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