The Brain: Our Universe Within

Episode Overview

Forty years ago, American anthropologist Doctor Ralph Selecki explored the caves at Shanidar where he unearthed an image of ancient man that profoundly changed the way we saw our ancestors. The professor discovered a skull - a Neanderthal skull. Strangely, it was covered with microscopic pollen from the flowers of thistle, groundsel, spiraea and hollyhock, among others. The same pollen dust covered the rest of the weathered skeleton, suggesting that his family and friends had deliberately gathered the flowers and laid them in bunches on the dead body. These mourners left behind the earliest known signs of man's awareness of death. Based on Doctor Selecki's findings, Neanderthals seemed to possess what we have come to call a mind.