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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
 Posted - 12/13/2010 : 18:14:32
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PREHISTORIC PEOPLE ATE EACH OTHER, BONES SHOW
Prehistoric humans, along with Neanderthals and Homo antecessor, made meals of each other, suggests new research on probable human teeth marks found on prehistoric human bones.
The findings, which will be published in the January issue of The Journal of Human Evolution, support prior theories that the first humans to re-colonize Britain after the last ice age practiced nutritional cannibalism 12,000 years ago at a site called Gough's Cave in what is now Somerset, England.
It was a survival strategy, according to authors Yolanda Fernandez-Jalvo and Peter Andrews.
"Think that a member of your group dies," Fernandez-Jalvo told Discovery News. "The body can give one day off from hunting, which was always dangerous at that time, and what to do with the dead body that may attract other dangerous carnivores that may attack the group."
"This could be a good solution," she added, reminding that cannibalism does not always mean the cannibal killed the consumed individual... |
"And we have to get ourselves back to the garden..." - Joni Mitchell
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Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2010 : 18:35:13 [Permalink]
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| I suppose letting things go to waste was a bad thing at the time. Other species do it too, so it's not unheard of. |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2010 : 21:40:21 [Permalink]
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Not surprising really since even in cultures today where cannibalism is illegal and highly taboo (which is most cultures), some will still do it if they are starving.
What we don't know is if this was the case here. Were these people starving, and eating people who had died of natural causes, were they ritually killed, or were they actually going out and hunting people? |
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Kil
Evil Skeptic
USA
13477 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2010 : 22:13:21 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Not surprising really since even in cultures today where cannibalism is illegal and highly taboo (which is most cultures), some will still do it if they are starving.
What we don't know is if this was the case here. Were these people starving, and eating people who had died of natural causes, were they ritually killed, or were they actually going out and hunting people?
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Based on the article, they have ruled out ritual cannibalism because it seems obvious to those who are analyzing the marks on the bones that the eaters were really going after the meat. And who knows? It's possible that the person they ate died of natural causes or maybe in a skirmish with neighbors or maybe a wild animal attack, and far be it for them to let perfectly good meat go to waste. |
Uncertainty may make you uncomfortable. Certainty makes you ridiculous.
Why not question something for a change?
Genetic Literacy Project |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 12/13/2010 : 22:18:03 [Permalink]
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Those questions are a little more difficult to answer.
I suspect it was not something done on a very frequent basis though. Maybe reserved for times of extreme hardship or when somebody young and healthy died unexpectedly.
If it were a common practice there is some chance we could find evidence of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (prion diseases) occuring at a greater than normal rate in the fossil record of the local populations. It has been suggested before that cannibalism and those nasty TSEs may have played a role in the extincion of Neandertals though...
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2010 : 00:43:40 [Permalink]
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| Yeah I read the part about the gnawing, you can't rule out ritual based on that although it does make it less likely. |
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular
USA
894 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2010 : 05:13:42 [Permalink]
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| Soylent Green is PEOPLE!! |
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2010 : 08:20:04 [Permalink]
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I first read about prehistoric cannibalism in NG, back in the '50s. The article called the Neandertals "epicurean cannibals" due to some skulls having been bashed open to get at the brain. They failed to mention that modern cannibals such as those in New Guinea do exactly the same.
Cannibalism had been with us for a very long time, possibly as early as the first Homo. It has been ceremonial, desperation and because it tastes good, especially children.
First Europeans were cannibals with taste for children
Early Europeans were cannibals with a particular taste for the flesh of children, archaeologists have claimed.
By Fiona Govan in Madrid 3:13PM BST 24 Jun 2009
The claim has come after bones of the ancestors of Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens who first settled in Europe around 800,000 years ago were unearthed in the Atapuerca caves in northern Spain.
Skull named Miguelon, estimated to be 400,000 years old, pictured at the Atapuerca archaeological site. A study of the prehistoric remains has revealed that human flesh formed part of the diet of early man and children and adolescents in particular were regularly killed and eaten.
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I recall a bit in Blackadder where Baldrick's family was said to have lots of children in order to provide a substitute for turkey on Christmas.
Yeah, I know; it's all pretty disgusting, but hey, meat's meat.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
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Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend
Sweden
9688 Posts |
Posted - 12/14/2010 : 11:14:32 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by On fire for Christ
Yeah I read the part about the gnawing, you can't rule out ritual based on that although it does make it less likely.
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Most likely they didn't use only gnawing to determine nutritional cannibalism. If the people were killed ritualistically, then there should be other evidence of the method of killing that conforms to ritulaistic murder rather than evidence of getting killed by accident or by predator.
For example, a skull fracture consistent with the bite of a polar bear, or a wolf fang still lodged in the femur, would likely disprove a ritual killing.
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Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3
"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse
Support American Troops in Iraq:
Send them unarmed civilians for target practice..
Collateralmurder. |
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular
Norway
1273 Posts |
Posted - 12/15/2010 : 01:35:48 [Permalink]
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| Also the bones were found in a pile mixed in with animal remains. Pretty much suggests they were treated like any other food. |
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Here's something to chew on.
