Twenty-Seven Miles from Gaza: Beings More Sapiens Than We

BELLOWS FALLS Vermont—(Hubris)—June 2025—We are one. We share one fate with other people and with non-human organisms. This essay provides additional evidence as I attempt to drive home this important point.

A headline in the 26 March issue of “SciTechDaily” reads: “Rewriting Human History: 110,000-Year-Old Discovery Suggests Neanderthals and Homo sapiens worked together.” Here’s the subhead: “Neanderthals and Homo sapiens shared technology and customs in the Levant, shaping early human culture through cooperation.”

That’s correct: through cooperation, not through conquest.

Twenty-seven short miles from the utter devastation of Gaza, where over 30,000 have lost their lives since the onset of bombing in October 2023, excavations at Israel’s Tinshemet Cave are ongoing.

The first four paragraphs tell a meaningful story:

“The first published study on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only lived side by side but also interacted closely. They shared tools, daily practices, and burial customs—evidence of meaningful cultural exchange.”

“These interactions encouraged social complexity and sparked behavioral innovations, including some of the earliest formal burials and the symbolic use of ochre for decoration. The findings suggest that collaboration, rather than isolation, played a key role in driving early human development. This positions the Levant as a vital crossroads in the story of human evolution.”

“Located in central Israel, Tinshemet Cave offers new insights into human relationships during the Middle Paleolithic period in the Near East. The site has yielded rich archaeological and anthropological evidence, including the first mid-middle Paleolithic burials discovered in over fifty years.”

“Published in ‘Nature Human Behaviour,’ this is the first scientific report on Tinshemet Cave. It provides strong evidence that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens not only coexisted in the region but also shared elements of daily life, technology, and mortuary practices. These findings point to a deeper and more complex relationship between the two species than previously thought.”

The article at “SciTechDaily” explains that the excavation of Tinshemet Cave began in 2017. “A primary goal of the research team is to determine the nature of Homo sapiens-Neanderthal relationships in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant. Were they rivals competing for resources, peaceful neighbors, or even collaborators?”

Additional information explains the research methods used in the study, as well as some of the findings:

“By integrating data from four key fields—stone tool production, hunting strategies, symbolic behavior, and social complexity—the study argues that different human groups, including Neanderthals, pre-Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens, engaged in meaningful interactions.”

“These exchanges facilitated knowledge transmission and led to the gradual cultural homogenization of populations. The research suggests that these interactions spurred social complexity and behavioral innovations.”

“For instance, formal burial customs began to appear around 110,000 years ago in Israel for the first time worldwide, likely as a result of intensified social interactions. A striking discovery at Tinshemet Cave is the extensive use of mineral pigments, particularly ochre, which may have been used for body decoration. This practice could have served to define social identities and distinctions among groups.”

Further findings are revealed under the subheading “Burial Practices and Symbolic Behavior”: “The clustering of human burials at Tinshemet Cave raises intriguing questions about its role in . . . [middle Paleolithic] society. Could the site have functioned as a dedicated burial ground or even a cemetery? If so, this would suggest the presence of shared rituals and strong communal bonds. The placement of significant artifacts—such as stone tools, animal bones, and ochre chunks—within the burial pits may further indicate early beliefs in the afterlife.”

Apparently, the idea of an afterlife has been around for a very long time. Despite the absence of hard evidence, it continues to persist among many people.

Three of the 33 authors of the peer-reviewed paper in “Nature Human Behaviour” are quoted in the article in “SciTechDaily”: One describes Israel as a “melting pot” where different human groups met, interacted, and evolved together: “Our data show that human connections and population interactions have been fundamental in driving cultural and technological innovations throughout history.”

The next writes, “[D]uring the . . . [middle Paleolithic], climatic improvements increased the region’s carrying capacity, leading to demographic expansion and intensified contact between different Homo taxa.” In other words, a change in the climate allowed for an increased number of individuals within the Homo genus. This, in turn, led to increased interaction between and among these people. More individuals in the same region started interacting with each other.

Finally, a third professor weighs in: “These findings paint a picture of dynamic interactions shaped by both cooperation and competition.”

In other words, contrary to the usual message about various humans in planetary history, these early individuals cooperated. They also interacted negatively, as would be expected with closely related individuals sharing space. The bottom line in the “SciTechDaily” story provides a compelling overview: “The discoveries at Tinshemet Cave offer a fascinating glimpse into the social structures, symbolic behaviors, and daily lives of early human groups. They reveal a period of profound demographic and cultural transformations, shedding new light on the complex web of interactions that shaped our ancestors’ world. As excavations continue, Tinshemet Cave promises to provide even deeper insights into the origins of human society.”

The peer-reviewed paper referenced in the SciTechDaily article was published on 11 March 2025. It is titled Evidence from Tinshemet Cave in Israel suggests behavioural uniformity across Homo groups in the Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic circa 130,000–80,000 years ago. The bottom line is found in the final paragraph of the Main section: “This study reveals tight connections between … mid-Middle Palaeolithic technological behaviour and the local development and elaboration of social .and symbolic behaviours within one coherent and uniform cultural complex.” These individuals from 130,000 years ago to 80,000 years ago cooperated with each other. They worked together, as indicated by a peer-reviewed paper in the renowned Nature series. I’d like to think we can continue this pattern, even within the species Homo sapiens. You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

To order Dr. McPherson’s books, click the cover images here below: