Hwaet! Grendel
Examining Neanderthal Humanity and Spirituality Through Archaeology and Oral Tradition
This paper was originally written for and presented at the 2016 Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology Conference (University of Northern Iowa). After several attempts to submit it to anthropological publications and being told it “wasn’t anthropological enough”, I’ve decided to self-publish it here. Enjoy!
Defining religion has long been a question of differentiating mandated practices and rituals from individual spirituality. Does one acquire a hunger for the divine due to the influence of a larger, corporate establishment? Or do religious establishments, ranging from Christianity to Zoroastrianism, exist out of ideas and beliefs birthed from individuals who shared in a common desire for something greater than themselves?
In the spirit of answering the proverbial chicken-egg paradox, anthropologists look to the prehistoric human past for the first signs of spirituality –something that itself is difficult to identify or quantify since spirituality involves the one part of the human being that is invisible, incalculable, and intangible: the soul.
By examining the one common denominator between all human civilizations, the one inevitability all creatures in existence face, we look to Neanderthal in how they handled death. In the absence of symbolic relics and inherited traditions, we resort to interpreting their burial practices to glean even the tiniest bit of information to see if an afterlife was something hoped for by these prehistoric relatives. It is in this way that we also differentiate between animal and human, for animals largely abandon their dead where they drop while humans invest more time and energy into “disposal” methods; in terms of Neanderthal, signs of funerary practices indicate higher intelligence and deeper emotional involvement than the oft-attributed animalistic mindset (Winzeler, 2012).
How, then, can we determine the bonds between individuals found in a Neanderthal site when all we have are bones, shells, stone tools and caves? Unlike modern families, Neanderthal lack photo albums and tombstones; unlike modern historians, anthropologists lack anecdotes and oral traditions, the shared memories of people long gone from this earth.
Or do they?
“Grendel was that grim creature called, the ill-famed haunter of the marches of land, who kept the moors, the fastness of the fens, and, unhappy one, inhabited long while the troll-kind’s home…” (Tolkien, 2015).
Here is introduced the primary antagonist of Beowulf, the Old English epic saga long-studied and long-debated by historians, archaeologists, and literary analysts like Professor Archibald Strong, who emphasized the poem as a historical document and not just a literary interest (Tolkein, 1936).
Throughout the first half of Beowulf, Grendel is described as a monster descended from biblical Cain’s cursed line and therefore hates all things Christian and godly, motives behind the violence he wreaks upon the Danes. When King Hrothgar builds his great hall, Heorot, and hosts lavish celebrations in honor of God and all His creation, Grendel “grievously endured a time of torment” day after day because he cannot stand the sound of God’s people rejoicing (Tolkien, 2015).
J. R. R. Tolkien held a different opinion, however, which has been supported by archaeological findings at Sutton Hoo, a significant Anglo-Saxon site in the east coast of England: the events and cultural features of Beowulf contain too many pagan references to have occurred in a post-Christianized northern Europe. The ship burial at Sutton Hoo has been dated by archaeologists to approximately AD 625–630, based upon coins of various origins found with the ship; this means that any Christian influence in the area was minimal at this time and therefore not a mainstream belief system during the events of Beowulf, estimated to have occurred in AD 700.
Sutton Hoo also provides a tangible look at the introduction of the saga, the sea-faring burial of King Scyld, the predecessor of Hrothgar, legitimizing the Danish king’s claim to the throne through bloodline as well as clarifying to the modern reader why the oldest known English poem is of Scandinavian events. While the epic describes Scyld’s funerary pyre floating out into the sea, all other descriptions within the text match what was found buried in Sutton Hoo; likewise, the burial lacks a corpse within the ship and has led archaeologists to speculate this site as symbolic rather than functional and therefore can still be attributed to Scyld (Bruce-Mitford, 1979).
In the absence of Christianity as a driving motivation behind common thought and action, it stands to reason that the events could have been less about spirituality and more about territorial and cultural conflict. What if Grendel were a Neanderthal? Far removed from the rest of his kind, and the last of a species not quite human, this idea is supported by both Beowulf and ongoing research in archaeology, physical anthropology, and genetics.
While the majority of the Neanderthal population would have vanished from Europe long before AD 700, we have more than plenty of examples in modern human history to support the idea of a few survivors outliving their relatives –Aztecs, Incas, even certain Celtic groups still remain long after the fall of their respective cultures.
With the Human Genome Project, we have found rare higher-than-normal percentages of Neanderthal DNA which indicate Homo sapien sapiens and Neanderthal interacted more recently than previously thought (O’Rourke, 2007). With a discovery of a 5% Neanderthal strain in some individuals, this places interaction with Homo sapien sapiens more recently than the previous estimate of 90,000 years ago in the Levant, although the exact timeframe has yet to be established (Fallows, 2012). With this very real possibility allowing us to plausibly identify Grendel as Neanderthal, suddenly the interactions described in the poem begin to make sense.
A new settlement of Homo sapien sapiens disrupted the once serene landscape of ancient Scandinavia, featuring Hrothgar’s Heorot Hall in what archaeologists have identified as modern-day Gammel-Lejre, Denmark. Locals during the Middle Ages boasted Lejre as the seat of the great Scyldings, and thirteenth-century historians agreed with this claim. The hall was so large, it is estimated to have been “twice the size of Yeavering, the…largest building known from early Anglo-Saxon England” (Niles, 2006). Excavations in Lejre found seven separate hall foundations, one in particular slightly isolated from the others and determined to be the largest; the isolation may indicate the building’s longevity in contrast to the multiple rebuilds clustered together in the village.
Warriors of this region typically slept in the great hall and kept their weapons close in preparation for any possible night raids –but in Hrothgar’s case, the building of such a great mead hall meant continual feasting of several boisterous men throughout several days and nights. Song, dance, drink, and sex filled the air in proud celebration of this great architectural accomplishment, permeating the silence and irritating a local native to the point of madness.
How does one bring silence once again to his homeland, especially when linguistic communication skills are nonexistent? This requires a bit more than finger-to-mouth shushing.
In Grendel’s attack on Heorot, we find another correlation between myth and anthropology: Neanderthal cave sites show cannibalism in the form of brain consumption, indicated by foramen magnums enlarged through force for access to the brain and broken bones with teeth marks indicating marrow extraction (Winzeler, 2012). The idea of ritual cannibalism, in which victims and body parts are specifically chosen in order to absorb strength and other desired skills, can also be entertained in the Beowulf context; Heorot Hall stood in the midst of a populated village but Grendel only went “where he knew full well that house of wine was” (Tolkien, 2015) and killed the warriors who slept there, but not Hrothgar, suggesting intelligent selection between victims instead of random slaughter elsewhere. Ritualistic or not, Grendel consumes various parts of his victims and is specifically described by witnesses as “biting the bone-joints, drinking blood from veins” (Tolkien, 2015).
Beowulf, warrior of the Geats, comes to the rescue and lures Grendel back to Heorot Hall with the din of feasting. On an interpretive note, it can be suggested that Beowulf recognizes Grendel for what he is, rather than what he’s described to be; lines 545–560 of the poem show Beowulf stripping off his armor, rejecting the use of weapons, and equating himself with Grendel as a man “no more despicable in deeds of battle than Grendel doth himself” (Tolkien, 2015).
With no blade to defend himself, Beowulf grabs Grendel’s arm in the midst of struggle and a tug-of-war ensues, ending with Grendel ripping himself away fiercely enough to leave his arm in Beowulf’s grasp. The fact that the immense blood loss from dismemberment is what kills Grendel strongly suggests a primitive life on his part in terms of medicine. Grendel’s arm is hoisted above the doorway of the great hall, rejoicing fills the land of the Scyldings, and Beowulf is named Hrothgar’s heir.
There is peace at last for all…save one.
“Misery was in her heart, she who must abide in the dreadful waters and the cold streams…” (Tolkien, 2015).
Throughout the centuries of the saga’s existence, Grendel’s mother is oft depicted as a water nymph, both beautiful and terrifying in her vengeance against Beowulf and the Scyldings. There are no clear descriptions of her physical attributes, but the assumption of her aquatic life must come from some form of prominent feature –perhaps shell jewelry pieces like those found at the Aviones Cave in Spain (Balter, 2010).
The poem describes her as being less terrifying than her son because she is a woman, and she recognizes quickly that she is outnumbered by stronger men almost as soon as she enters Heorot Hall. She manages to slay a warrior and injure others, and in her rush to escape, snatches Grendel’s arm to take home. This part of the saga is very interesting because the storyteller suddenly humanizes who is otherwise depicted as inhuman — demonic nymph she is no longer, but rather a woman seeking closure and justice for her child.
Robert Winzeler claims that the largest indicator of possible Neanderthal religion is “the apparent burial of the dead in caves and rock shelters, presumably the same ones in which those who did the burying were also living” (Winzeler, 2012). This may also be one of the strongest areas of argument for Grendel and his mother existing as Neanderthals.
Strong emotional attachment to the deceased is plausible reasoning for burial near or within main living areas, does not necessarily involve any spiritual or religious beliefs, and is explicitly described in Beowulf. When Beowulf seeks the mother out in retribution, he finds her inside a cave hidden beyond the shoreline, which he reaches only by swimming there and almost drowns under the weight of his armor and a covert attack by the mother.
Beowulf at this point is “grim with war” and throws the woman by her hair across the cave floor, which she, in turn, answers with her own strength and, having thrown him on his back, strikes with her own weapon to avenge her only child. Saved by his chainmail against her “burnished blade” that could not pierce the metal –perhaps because it is a Mousterian stone knife — Beowulf stumbles upon a sword among the treasures of the cave and runs the mother through. He then finds Grendel “on his couch” and swiftly beheads him to ensure complete death and finalize his victory (Tolkien, 2015). Tolkien’s translation suggests Grendel may have still been alive, just barely, but common interpretation indicates Grendel has already bled to death and was being prepared for burial by his mother. It is here in the cave that the family of Grendel comes to an end.
Is it such a stretch for the scholar, for the anthropologist and historian, to embrace the idea and plausibility of Neanderthal defying the standards we have set –for do we not also, as modern Homo sapien sapiens, continuously push beyond expectations and preset limitations?
In this story, this encounter and clash between two vastly different worlds populated by not so vastly different hominids, we the researchers have an incredible window of opportunity to catch a glimpse of the Neanderthal soul if only we concede that man’s myths serve more to describe the unknown, rather than to create from the nonexistent.
And in this eye-witness account, we see the question asked not in words but in suggestion: what makes a monster, and what makes a man? Is Hrothgar the victim of demonic terror, or instigator of violence against anything which he does not know? Why did Beowulf regard Grendel with respect as an equal when he is told this is a monstrous creature, and where is the proof of the mother’s death when the only witness is the warrior himself? Is Grendel truly a troll and ogre of a cursed line inflicting random horror as he pleases, or is he merely a primitive man of solitude desperate for the world to return to the way it was –fearful of the oncoming evolution that even he cannot avoid?
He is, in either circumstance, the last of his own, and in his death leaves his mother to grieve over the loss of her child and her world. The fact that Beowulf does not behead her and instead provides his men with a fantastical excuse as to why he doesn’t have the blade that killed her strongly suggests that such an event never occurred; rather, it could be that in a moment of true human sympathy, recognizing the inevitability of her fate, Beowulf left her to the silence of her home and to the agony of her sorrow.
Perhaps in this, as scholar Fernando Savater suggests, we have our answer for the spirituality and the existence of the soul within Neanderthal if understanding the inevitability of death and accepting it as unavoidable is “what truly makes us human” (Arsuaga, 2002).
References
Arsuaga, J. L. (2002). The Neanderthal’s Necklace: In Search of the First Thinkers. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows.
Balter, M. (2010). Neandertal Jewelry Shows Their Symbolic Smarts. Science, 255–256.
Bruce-Mitford, R. (1979). The Sutton Hoo Ship Burial: A Handbook. London: British Museum Publications.
Fallows, J. (2012, October 11). At 5% Neanderthal, You Are an Outlier. Retrieved from The Atlantic: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/at-5-neanderthal-you-are-an-outlier/263475/
Niles, J. D. (2006). Beowulf’s Great Hall. History Today, 40–44.
O’Rourke, D. H. (2007). Ancient DNA and its Applications to the Reconstruction of Human Evolution and History. In M. Crawford, Anthropological Genetics (pp. 210–231). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tolkein, J. R. (1936). Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics. Folcroft, Pennsylvania: Folcroft Library Editions.
Tolkien, J. R. (2015). Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary (Together With Sellic Spell). New York: First Mariner Books.
Winzeler, R. L. (2012). Anthropology and Religion. Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press.
