In Iraq, a 75,000-Year-Old Neanderthal’s Shoulder Blade May Hold the Earliest Wooden Spear Wound

In Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan, researchers have found a hole in a Neanderthal’s left shoulder blade that may be the earliest evidence of a wooden spear attack on a human ancestor. The individual, known as Shanidar A, lived about 75,000 years ago. The University of Cambridge team published the work in Scientific Reports.

What the bone shows

The scapula has a circular hole about 15 mm across. The researchers argue that a sharpened wooden spear likely made it, because a stone tip would leave a flat or angular hole. The spear appears to have entered the front of the left chest, passed through the lung and likely major arteries, and exited through the shoulder blade. The team thinks this caused rapid death.

Bone shards suggest a downward thrust. The authors say the blow “may have been an intended ‘heart shot’.”

Who was Shanidar A?

The surviving remains include the scapula, a mostly complete right hand, two left ribs, a right rib fragment and seven teeth. They belong to an adult of about 45 years. The remains lay under 7.5 metres of rock and sediment.

A lower incisor split lengthways, and the teeth around it rotated inward. Heavy tartar on the root suggests the person lived at least a year, and possibly longer, after that injury. The authors say this likely required care from other Neanderthals.

Violence or accident?

A hunting accident remains possible. The authors still see “hints of deliberate violence” and call interpersonal violence between Neanderthals the most straightforward interpretation, although the context is unknown.

A burial among five

Shanidar A is one of five individuals, four adults and an infant, in a cluster about 1.5 m by 1 m and 1 m deep. Shanidar A lies deepest, possibly the first placed there, on the back with the head facing east. The authors describe “intentional and symbolic funerary behaviour” as the best explanation, and some burials may have happened years or decades apart. Ralph Solecki’s 1950s excavations found ten individuals in the cave.

How it compares with older spears

Wooden spears are much older than this wound. Waterlogged spears from Schöningen in Germany are about 200,000 years old, and a spear tip from Clacton-on-Sea in the UK is over 400,000 years old. Those finds show Neanderthal-era people made wooden spears. The Shanidar A claim is narrower: it may be the earliest case of one used against a human ancestor.

Source: University of Cambridge, 15 October 2026. Lead author Dr Emma Pomeroy, with excavation led by Prof Graeme Barker. Scientific Reports, DOI 10.1038/s41598-026-69193-z.