Roughly 27,500 years ago, a 15-year-old boy was brutally mauled by a bear in Arene Candide in today’s Liguria, Italy. The attack tore through his jaw, neck and left shoulder. He was dying, but he was not alone in his final moments.
Instead, his community carried him to a cave, packed his wounds and stayed with him for days until he died. Then they laid him on a bed of red ochre (a natural clay pigment) and buried him.
