Archaeologists call the remains Shanidar A, named after the cave in which they were found. Remains of at least 10 Neanderthals were discovered in excavations in the cave in the 1950s.
The wound is thought to be the first evidence for use of sharpened wooden spears in the prehistoric Middle East, according to Pomeroy.
“It is not the kind of break that you would get naturally, because it is so circular,” she said. “Experiments with reconstructed wooden spears produce very similar round holes in bone.”
But the interpersonal violence is by no means certain, she says. It may be a case of friendly fire, a wound caused as a result of a hunting accident.
But Prof Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved in the research, told BBC News that an attack by a rival was the more plausible explanation.
“The researchers leave it open whether this resulted from a hunting accident or interpersonal violence, but in my view the latter seems more likely, given the positioning and extent of the wound,” he said.
This discovery has echoes of an earlier find in the same cave, in 1957. Those remains involved another Neanderthal who lived more recently, around 50, 000 years ago. Their ribs had evidence of a partly healed wound, which archaeologists believe was probably caused by a stone-tipped spear.
We can’t tell for sure whether these Neanderthals were hurt by a companion during a hunt or murdered by a rival. But they join a small but growing body of evidence which point to the possibility that human-on-human violence was more common and goes back further than the current scientific consensus would suggest.
“I unfortunately see the growing body of evidence as an indication that interpersonal violence goes deep into human prehistory,” Stringer told BBC News.
