The caves that prove Neanderthals were cannibals

I'd bet they at us, we ate them, we both ate ourselves.

Hobbits ate humans, or so the bones say. Ill tell you, THAT is some interesting reading to do. To think hobbits may have lived as recently as 200 years ago. Or still today.

I'd bet denisovans did the same.

I think eating your species is atypical across the animal kingdom. Im not sure if a neandertal would recognize other humans like sapiens as being "human".

Im also not thinking a neandertal eating a sapien is much different than a sapien eating chimp (bush meat)

a reply to: 727Sky

"It looks like a little babay. . Git in muh bellay!"

Cannibalism has prevailed among many nations.

Humboldt, in his work on South America, gives an account of the introduction of the custom among the Mexicans. Southey's Notices of the same country contain the most revolting details. Cortez, in some of his despatches during the Spanish war in America, spoke of the custom. Bernal Diaz, one of his soldiers, confirms it.

In New Zealand the last act of cannibalism was near Christchurch New Zealand circa 1828 when a Maori raiding party took Kaiapoi Pa, a tribal settlement and slaughtered 800 people. Apparently victims were kept alive by having stakes driven through them to pin them to the ground and then one by one all were eaten.

The most extraordinary instance known to exist, is that practiced by the Battas people, in an extensive and populous nation of Sumatra. Although advanced in civilization, according to Sir Stamford Raffles, they ate human flesh by law.

“It is the universal and standing law of the Battas, that death by eating shall be inflicted—1st, for adultery; 2nd, for midnight robbery; 2rd, in wars of importance; 4th, for intermarrying in the same tribe; 5th, for treacherous attacks on a house, village, or person. In all the above cases it is lawful for the victim to be eaten—tied to a stake and cut up alive, and devoured by piecemeal.”

originally posted by: 727Sky

and of fractures to extract the marrow within, they say

In all of my life I have never bothered to fracture a bone to get at the marrow.

That said, the neighbors fat little kids better be afraid the day the grocery store shelves stop being stocked.

Happy New Year, brother!!

a reply to: Snarl

You to, happy new year !

Some of the countries and the people there in who basically have little meat and almost no fat will will chow down on anything that has the appearance of fat.. No doubt you have seen the same thing..

Some in the west have no idea just how lucky we are...

Russia, Famine of 1921-22.. then to 33. Manmade famine at that. Completely unnecessary. I was writing a book.. a sort of cannibal cookbook a few yrs ago. May have told about it on here. I mean I KNOW I did, but may have been chat rather than board. Anyway, Id researched cannibalism for nearly a year and a half.. 1/2 cookbook, 1/2 history book... and the pics and stories from that famine were the WORST Id ever heard of or researched.

Then look at 1933.. Russian "cannibal island".

Cannibalism happens. Some folks like it.. underground restaurants prove that.


WHen you get into REAL research... you find the eaters of men may be your neighbor or boss...

All of the above examples, bar Floresiensis, demonstrate that Homo Sapiens Sapiens practice and have practiced cannibalism.

In terms of Neanderthals, two further examples are the caves at El Sidron in Spain:

First discovered deep inside the El Sidron cave system in 1994, the bones had been preserved for 51,000 years and have now been analysed using modern-day CSI forensic techniques.
According to reports in the Sunday Times, Carles Lalueza-Fox of the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona told the Society the slaughtered group included three children aged from two to nine, three teenagers and six adults.

“They appear to have been killed and eaten, with their bones and skulls split open to extract the marrow, tongue and brains,” he said.

and the examples at Moula-Guercy, France:

Now, the 100,000-120,000 year-old bones discovered at the cave site of Moula-Guercy near the west bank of the Rhone river portray a convincing picture in which a group of Neanderthals systematically defleshed the bones of at least six other individuals and then broke the bones apart with a hammerstone and anvil to remove the marrow and brains.

So three sites with similar findings. Symbolic ritual, a system of law, starvation? We don't know. Nothing to dispel the growing understanding that Neanderthals were just like us. In fact,

... scientists proposed a theory for the motive behind the attack – and a simple one at that.
Unlike the earliest anatomically modern humans, who coped with periods of food shortage by joining forces in large, efficient groups, Neanderthals tended to gather in small family gangs of around 10-12. When times were tough in winter, this meant they had to resort to extreme measures.

Not so different at all really.

originally posted by: beansidhe
... scientists proposed a theory for the motive behind the attack – and a simple one at that.
Unlike the earliest anatomically modern humans, who coped with periods of food shortage by joining forces in large, efficient groups, Neanderthals tended to gather in small family gangs of around 10-12. When times were tough in winter, this meant they had to resort to extreme measures.

We know from anthropologists that numerous human groups all over the globe responded to food shortages with infanticide and geronticide, you would have thought, waste not want not. There is some support for the belief that the hominid brain expanded as it did because of scavenging the kills of other animals and accessing the long-chain fatty acids found in marrow and which are so important to brain development. Perhaps eating our relatives marrow was a way of absorbing them in some spiritual way?

a reply to: Anaana

Hello there! I wondered the same thing on the last page. We just don't know and it's what makes it so difficult to attribute personality to an ancient family group. We see things from our own perspective and try to force Neanderthals into that box.

But it would give a whole new perspective to the Eucharist - maybe it is a leftover practice from the Neanderthals?

a reply to: beansidhe

Hello! Could be similar in origin, belief/concept wise, to the Eucharist, which is basically you are what you eat, and we are all the same because we eat from the same trough (and what a beautiful trough it is). So rather than "We are all the same because we eat from the same bread...", it'd be "We are all the same because we eat of our own dead"?

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: 727Sky

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

screw context - lets demonise the dead neandertals

Well, there was the Donner Party, which ain't exactly proof that Americans are cannibals.

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: 727Sky

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

screw context - lets demonise the dead neandertals

Well, there was the Donner Party, which ain't exactly proof that Americans are cannibals.

Yeah...that's not the kind of Donner Party I like...but I've heard rumours about those too