ABSTRACT
Life is an exploration of what it is to be a human or another species, it is an exploration of the world and the universe, and an exploration of individual selves. History and knowledge evolve, but ultimately brains can take in information or create no longer, and in order to avoid a world of superfluous beings all creatures eventually die. Indeed, the body programmes its own death. The re-use of history is a part of this process of exploration, allowing deeper understanding of the present and a better ability to pioneer, while both of these – exploration and pioneering – take place as a means of social expression. In this chapter we look at some of these ideas in the world of Palaeolithic hominids, and especially of the European Neanderthalers. We examine some of the ways they achieved an understanding of their world through the use of the bones of past lives, both of themselves and of the animals with whom they moved through life during the decachiliads of the Pleistocene period.
