New Scientist
Archaeologists found 5700-year-old butchered human remains in El Mirador cave, Spain, showing clear signs of cannibalism. The 11 victims, likely a family, were killed and eaten during conflict, not famine or ritual. Evidence suggests Neolithic warfare-driven cannibalism, mirroring similar findings in France and Germany, marking the era’s violent territorial clashes.
Human Bones Show Signs Of Ancient Cannibalism
Author: Luke Taylor
BUTCHERED human remains found in a cave in northern Spain suggest that Neolithic people may have eaten their enemies after killing them in combat.
Francesc Marginedas at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) in Tarragona, Spain, and his colleagues studied 650 fragments of human remains belonging to 11 people, which were found in El Mirador cave in the Atapuerca mountains and date back 5700 years.
All of the bones had signs that these individuals had been eaten by fellow humans. Some had chop marks, indicating that the people’s skin was cut off with stone tools, while others were translucent with slightly rounded edges, suggesting they had been boiled. Some of the longer bones had been broken open with stones, probably to extract and eat the marrow, while smaller ones like metatarsals and ribs featured human teeth marks (Scientific Reports, doi.org/pz8k).
The study adds to evidence that cannibalism was more common than previously thought throughout human history.
El Mirador is at least the fifth site with strong evidence of cannibalism in Spain in the Neolithic period, when people switched from foraging to farming, says Marginedas.
Why humans ate each other so much is less certain. At some sites, evidence including skull cups suggests that cannibalism may have had a ceremonial purpose. At others, it appears to have been a means of survival during extreme famine.
Marginedas and his colleagues say the evidence at El Mirador instead points to war. An abundance of animal remains and no signs of nutritional stress in the humans indicate this early farming community didn’t face famine, they say. They found no telltale signs of ritual, with the human remains mixed in with animal bones.
The age of the individuals ranged from under 7 to more than 50 years old, suggesting a whole family had been wiped out in conflict. Radiocarbon dating revealed that all 11 people were probably killed and eaten in a matter of days.
The researchers say this mirrors signs of conflict and cannibalism also seen at two other Neolithic sites: Fontbrégoua cave in France and Herxheim in Germany. This period increasingly looks like it was defined by violence, as communities clashed with neighbours or newly arrived settlers over territory.
Marginedas and his colleagues are less sure why these people then ate their adversaries, but ethnographical studies of humans eating each other in war throughout history suggest cannibalism was a form of “ultimate elimination”.
Silvia Bello at the Natural History Museum in London agrees the deaths were probably the result of conflict, but isn’t convinced they were eaten as a form of humiliation. While the cannibalism may indeed have been fuelled by aggression, it could still have been ceremonial, she says.
“I think it could be more complicated. Even if it was warfare, the fact that they eat them still has a sort of ritualistic meaning,” she says.
Credits: TCA, LLC.