What “75,000 Years Old” Means for the Burial Debate

One specific implication of Shanidar Z’s age — approximately 75,000 years before present — that has not been fully explored in popular accounts is its relationship to the chronology of symbolic behavior in anatomically modern humans.

The behavioral modernity debate in human evolution focuses largely on the question of when anatomically modern humans began consistently displaying the full suite of symbolic behaviors associated with modern human cognition: cave painting, personal ornaments, complex composite technology, long-distance trade, and formal burial.

The evidence for these behaviors in the modern human record becomes robust — consistent, geographically widespread, and undeniable — somewhere between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago in Europe, and perhaps somewhat earlier in Africa.