The caves that prove Neanderthals were cannibals

OK just because a certain group ate mom, dad, and the kids does not mean they all did IMO. Isolated groups end up doing some weird stuff to this very day. Anyway thought I would post this for those who think all the Neanderthals we warm fuzzy smarter than etc etc... Also I found the article interesting.

Deep in the caves of Goyet in Belgium researchers have found the grisly evidence that the Neanderthals did not just feast on horses or reindeer, but also on each other.

Human bones from a newborn, a child and four adults or teenagers who lived around 40,000 years ago show clear signs of cutting and of fractures to extract the marrow within, they say.

"It is irrefutable, cannibalism was practised here," says Belgian archaeologist Christian Casseyas as he looks inside a cave halfway up a valley in this site in the Ardennes forest.

phys.org...

Im reminded of the Always Sunny human meat episode haha. I agree with the OP, food shortages in an isolated primitive environment can do the same thing to modern humans. It doesnt necessarily mean thats a regular thing.

What's funny about this is that you can't prove why these humans were eaten.

Die ask we know, they ate their dead. When the average life expectancy is short and everyone lives as an all natural scavenger, they might taste as good as local wild life.

People are fragile, and made of meat.
Even native Americans wouldn't waste anything from a kill- this might be no different. Just because society deems it gross doesn't mean it was out of the picture 40k years ago.
200 years back toilet paper wasn't really a thing.

a reply to: lordcomac

Yep, they ate their dead.

To think of it, It's Still disgusting.

a reply to: 727Sky

i guess that Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 " prooves " that homo sapiens = canibals

screw context - lets demonise the dead neandertals

soylent neanderthal green?/

why not, human sacrifice to invisible magicians so it rains, or eat recently deceased gramps..

we are animals yannow..

The irony is when we pretend that we are very far removed from animals, we are wrong.

There are few basic drives. The drive to eat and survive is one of them.

If any of us started starving to death and grandma was the only one around, I imagine grandma might start looking pretty tasty...

Survival is survival, fancy civilization or ancient cave.

There is a old term in the south pacific for it, translated to Long Pig. It's not that far back.

Neanderthal warm and fuzzy...
Got to ask, are we all warm and fuzzy
Seems people here would eat the dead metaphorically

a reply to: boozo

They may of had to do so....we don't know the circumstances they were in.
As history has shown us in certain circumstances we would.

a reply to: 727Sky

What we don't know though, was the context. Was this done as part of an elaborate, spiritual ritual where the marrow of the dead was consumed to ensure everlasting life, or transfer of 'soul' or whatever? Or did they just like chomping on their family because they were tasty? Or were they starving and driven into the cave in desperation?

This in itself doesn't tell us much and it's very difficult to attribute personality to Neanderthals based on this cave alone.

a reply to: 727Sky

I heard it was HS that did the eating, but hey it's just me.

No, they were not cannibals, they were religious. And the caves were cathedrals.

Extract the marrow = Release the soul or spirit from the body

a reply to: 727Sky

While interesting , it doesn't prove neanderthals were cannibals, it definitely implies a certain group, or segment of them may have been.

Humans obviously had cannibalism culturally in certain groups and incidents of individuals for survival. I dont see that as making humans cannibals either.

a reply to: 727Sky

All our ancestors were cannibals, and we ate the denisovan and neanderthal, among many others, all of them.

That is what we do- we eat.

originally posted by: solve
a reply to: 727Sky

All our ancestors were cannibals, and we ate the denisovan and neanderthal, among many others, all of them.

That is what we do- we eat.

Well with the DNA evidence we did more than just eat

Again, they find some bones obviously manipulated and jump to conclusions.
We don't know for what reason and most likely never will.

While it's easy to say we all have to eat, it's also just as reasonable to assume all humans are complicated and have always been so. Cultural practices, spiritual reasons, environmental disasters are all just as likely reasons.
Serial killers and aberrant behaviors didn't just suddenly manifest with Jack the Ripper or Lizzie Borden. We also don't know that some illness didn't precipitate this incident. Causing paranoia & and unfortunate incident.

Without MORE sites demonstrating this we don't know squat.

Science click-bait is still click bait.

originally posted by: testingtesting
a reply to: boozo

They may of had to do so....we don't know the circumstances they were in.
.

Clearly this was the start of the freemasons.

a reply to: Ove38

citation required - you just replaced obvious assumption with an even more ergregious leap of " logic "

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Neanderthal warm and fuzzy...
Got to ask, are we all warm and fuzzy
Seems people here would eat the dead metaphorically

At least the Neanderthals ate them after they were dead. Some people here wouldn't bother waiting for them to stop breathing first.