One of the most fascinating things about the study of anthropology is that
certain facts suggest lineages between facts,which while not provable, are
certainly fascinating possibilities. Such is the case with the above topic.
This lineage was suggested by a description of a cave painting in an obscure
northern Spanish cave named La Pasiega. The drawing is from the Solutrean
times, 20,000 years ago. The description follows:
"On a flat panel, behind this rock throne, a prehistoric artist with some
personality has painted a spirited, defiant bull in profile. The painter had
an individual style, a sort of prehistoric Rubens, because his undulant
baroque line is repeated nowhere else in Paleolithic art. The bull's back
swell with a curved hump of muscle. His chest is massive, his shoulders
thick, bulging. His head thrusts forward, covered by a jutting cowl of fur.
A single horn flips up and forward from behind the tiny dot of his eye.
"The scrolling and curving style of this bull gives him a sensuous power,
heavy and thickset. He's full of male energy.
"He appears to be wounded, as if he is the prototype of a bull in a Spanish
bullring. From his back, what looks like a pica in a Spanish bullfight
stands erect. It's really just a dark vertical line, but it looks for all
the world as though this bull might have been stabbed by some daring early
hunter. " Charles Bergman, Orion's Legacy (New York: Dutton, 1996), p.
32-33
Going to the encyclopedia to see what the history of Bull fighting was, I
found the following.
"Even before the Punic Wars the Celtiberian people knew the peculiarities of
the savage cattle that inhabited their forests, having developed their hunt
into a game and also having used them as an auxiliary in war.
...Carthaginians and Romans, disputing the known world between them, were
astounded by accounts of Barca's annihilation. They were equally amazed at
subsequent tales of games held in Baetica (the Spanish province of
Andalusia) in which men exhibited dexterity and valour before dealing the
death blow with ax or lance to a savage horned beast. The Iberians were
reported to use skins or cloaks to avoid the repeated attacks of their
savage bulls before killing them." B.C. "Bullfighting, Encyclopedia
Britannica, 1982, 3:476
Thus as far back in history as Iberians are known, they were fighting bulls.
The Solutrean drawing, may extend that tradition even further back, back
to nearly 20,000 years ago, just 6000 years after the world saw the death of
the Neanderthals.
The question of why the Iberians are the people who originated this custom
is something that can't be answered definitively. However, there are some
hints that we can glean from archaeology. One of the final places in which
the Neanderthals lived, was Spain. The second youngest dated Neanderthal
comes from Zafarraya, Spain, dating to 28,000 years. and last year the Lagar
Velho site yielded up a neanderthal/human hybrid who dates to 24,500 years
ago. This suggests that there was a merging of culture, the Neanderthal and
modern human. The lifestyle of the Neanderthal may shed some light on the
origin of Bullfighting.
Of all the ancient hominids, Neandertals have some of the most curious
injuries. It is believed that they hunted single handedly against large
animals. (see Valerius Geist, "Neanderthal the Hunter," Natural History,
90:1 January, 1981, pp. 26-36, p.31)
Mithen writes:
"A very high proportions of Neanderthals suffered from stress fractures, and
degenerative diseases. In fact they show a very similar pattern of physical
injuries to rodeo riders today. It would indeed be difficult to think of any
group of people more in need of a wide variety of tools, or ones dedicated
to specific tasks." ~ Steven Mithen, The Prehistory of the Mind, (New York:
Thames and Hudson, 1996), p. 126
How they acquired these injuries has been a matter of much discussion. One
of the most plausible suggestions is that they induced their prey to charge
them, and at the last second, stepped aside, grabbed the animal's fur, hung
on and stabbed the animal with a short sword or knife (Geist, ibid). When
they failed to hang on, they would be thrown through the air or trampled as
rodeo participants are today. (The big social event in Houston each year is
the rodeo. Having just recently seen this spectacle, it is amazing that more
participants aren't seriously hurt). This lifestyle, long continued,
affected their bodies through natural selection. Successful Neanderthals
were able to survive such activities pass on the physical traits that made
them good at such a hunting style. To hang on to an animal required strong
hands that could grip tightly:
"Their fingers were identical in form to modern ones, but Neanderthal thumbs
were capable of exerting exceptional force during normal grips. In
contrast, early anatomically modern humans had much less powerful grips." ~
Brian M. Fagan, The Journey From Eden, (London: Thames and Hudson, 1990), p.
80
They needed to be able to rotate their torso during the stabbing. They
developed a different style of pubic rami which allowed the adductor muscles
a stronger substrate to allow for such movement. Black notes:
“Researchers have long recognized a unique morphological pattern among
the Neandertal superio pubic rami. The Neandertal rami are both absolutely
and relatively longer than those of modern humans, they evidence a ‘reversed
’ pattern of sexual dimorphism, and the rami are also relatively thinner
than those of modern humans.
“Several hypotheses, including obstetrical and biomechanical, have been
put forward to account for the differences between the superior pubic rami
of Neandertals and modern humans, but none has gained much acceptance, and
none accounts for all of the observed divergences from modern human
morphology.
“The ‘trunk torsion hypothesis’ accounts for all of the observed
morphological differences in the superior pubic ramal morphology of
Neandertals, and links the unique morphology to adaptations for close-range
predation in Neandertals.
“If Neandertals were making use of bimanual, unilateral thrusting in
their hunting of large prey, large torsional forces would have been
generated along the body axis. In order to maximize the force delivered to
the prey, these torsional forces would have to have been counteracted at the
substrate. The adductor muscles of the thigh would have played an important
role in producing such counter-torsional forces.” M. T. Black, “The ‘Trunk
Torsion Hypothesis’ and Neandertal Superior Pubic Ramal Morphology,”
Abstracts for the Paleoanthropology Society Meetings, Columbus, Ohio,
U.S.A., April 27-28, 1999, p. A2
Black (personal communication) has told me that the different pubic rami are
genetic and inherited rather than developed during their lifetime. I would
suggest that these physical features were evolved in Neanderthal as a result
of their lifestyle.
Now, it is entirely plausible that the hunting ways of the Neanderthal which
would have been engaged in in Spain longer than in most places, could have
been passed down to us today, through the merging of the two cultures, as a
sport which proves the manhood of the participant. The Bullfight is very
much like the way the Neandertal is believed to have hunted. The bull is
enticed to charge. At the last minute the Toreador steps aside and stabs the
animal with a sword. Only the grabbing of the fur and hanging on is missing.
So what do we know for fact.
1. Neanderthals engaged in close range hunting as if evidenced by their
injuries and the changes in their morphology.
2. The Neanderthals and modern humans interbred in Portugal--which had to
have mixed the cultures.
3. Drawings of possible bull fighting have come to us from the Solutrean
20,000 years ago.
4. As far back as history allows, bull fighting has been going on in Iberia.
To me, there are tremendous implications which follow from the possible
cultural continuity. If this is the case, how can we exclude the
Neanderthals from humanity when a small part of our modern culture may be
directly derivable from them?
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