Hunters around the world have always liked to show off their kills. Whether it be by proudly bringing the corpse of a large animal into camp to consume with everyone, wearing their pelts, or mounting the head of the animal on the wall, being proud of our hunting abilities seems to be one of those things that is common across almost all cultures.

It really isn’t surprising either, since our ability to hunt is largely responsible for the success of humans for thousands of years. The best hunters want to make sure that everyone knows they are great hunters, as it would undoubtedly get them preferential treatment in their tribe, which naturally leads to more mating opportunities. So, while people often poke fun at men on dating sites who post pictures of themselves with a large fish or other animal that they caught, the behavior is something that has been a successful dating behavior for millennia.

In fact, according to a study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, this behavior may go back even to our pre-human ancestors.

There is a cave in central Spain where researchers found skulls of large, horned animals. On its own, this isn’t exactly surprising. What is unusual is that the skulls are all that they found there. If this cave were just used for day-to-day living by the Neanderthals who put the bones there, researchers would have found things other than the skulls and horns.

The fact that it is only the skull suggests that these particular bones were brought there intentionally after the rest of the animal was butchered, consumed, and its other bones disposed of. Simply put, these Neanderthals were keeping the skull as a trophy.

Of course, it could have been just a coincidence that a skull was found here if there were just a small number of them, but that is not the case. The cave, called Des-Cubierta Cave, contains a stash of at least 35 of these skulls that the study says seem to have come from multiple generations of Neanderthals. Another important thing to note is that these were all horned animals, including bison, deer, and now extinct animals like the steppe rhinoceroses.

So, it wasn’t just that our ancient ancestors liked to collect the skulls of animals in general, but that they liked to keep the skulls of the largest and most impressive animals that they were able to hunt and kill. These skulls were found in multiple layers of rockfall and sediment, which the researchers say indicates that they were brought into the cave over the course of multiple generations and extended periods of time.

This is just more evidence that Neanderthals were not the simple creatures with little to no abstract thought. Instead, they lived much more complex lives than people previously believed, including collecting trophies from their best hunts just like modern man does today.

If you thought that was interesting, you might like to read about the mysterious “pyramids” discovered in Antarctica. What are they?