Shanidar 1

[ysabetwordsmith]

Shanidar 1 is probably the most famous disabled person in history: missing an arm, blind in one eye, hard of hearing or deaf, mobility impaired, and more. He belonged to a Neanderthal family who exerted maximum effort to keep him alive, far beyond the typical lifespan of the time. Because he strove to survive, and they helped, his story lives on through his bones -- concrete proof that compassion, not brute force, is part of what made us human from the very beginning. The ability to care for each other, and to value people for themselves, not just for what they could contribute, made a difference in our survival.


I suspect that people underestimate what he could do though. Maybe he was a storyteller or lorekeeper. Maybe he hunted with snares, or gathered plants. (Jean M. Auel portrayed him as a shaman in The Clan of the Cave Bear.) Based on the ingenuity of most disabled people, he probably could do many activities of daily living once his injuries healed, even if he needed help doing some things. Needing help isn't the same as being helpless, and being limited doesn't necessarily mean being useless.

Also, the Neanderthals did not wholly disappear. A substantial portion of their DNA survives in Homo sapiens of European descent. Thousands of years ago, our family lines mingled -- not just once, but repeatedly, enough to leave sufficient offspring to spread those traits far and wide.

This is a story from a world that was very hard to survive. It was frigid and full of predators. Finding food was difficult and dangerous. Shelter was scarce. Yet they found enough not just to survive, but to support the weakest among them, for decades.

Remember that the next time someone says that society "can't afford" to support disabled people, or calls them a burden. And then ask how human they are, who have so much more than our ancestors did, but want to do less with it.

Comments

[cmcmck]

You do come across historical people whe were severely disabled and whose families helped them to survive.

There were famous disabled warriors too. Jan Zizka, the Hussite military leader, was blind.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>>You do come across historical people whe were severely disabled and whose families helped them to survive.<<

Plenty of them. Shanidar 1 is just the oldest we've found so far, and likely the most famous.

>> There were famous disabled warriors too. Jan Zizka, the Hussite military leader, was blind.<<

My favorite is Galvarino.

[gatheringrivers]

One of the video comments suggested that Shanidar 1 may have been a shaman.

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

It's quite likely, because:

1) The shaman's path is one of the oldest specializations because it greatly improves your tribe's chances of survival, and has been found across time and around the world.

2) That kind of near-death experience will activate one's awareness of the beyond, if one has any mystical potential at all.