Were Neanderthals Devoured By Humans? 502
Hugh Pickens writes "The Guardian reports that a Neanderthal jawbone covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped from deer provides crucial evidence that humans attacked Neanderthals, and sometimes killed them, bringing back their bodies to caves to eat or to use their skulls or teeth as trophies. 'For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,' says Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique. According to Rozzi, a discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument. Previous excavations revealed bones that were thought to be exclusively human. But Rozzi's team re-examined them and found one they concluded was Neanderthal." (Continued, below.)
"Importantly, it was covered in cut marks similar to those left behind when flesh is stripped using stone tools. Not every team member agrees. 'One set of cut marks does not make a complete case for cannibalism,' says Francesco d'Errico, of the Institute of Prehistory in Bordeaux. It was also possible that the jawbone had been found by humans and its teeth used to make a necklace, he said. 'This is a very important investigation,' said Professor Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London. 'This does not prove we systematically eradicated the Neanderthals or that we regularly ate their flesh. But it does add to the evidence that competition from modern humans probably contributed to Neanderthal extinction.'"
Neanderthal (Score:4, Insightful)
The Other Other Other White Meat.
Eating apes is pretty close to cannibalisim (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you draw the line? Neanderthals were pretty close to modern humans, and as far as we can tell, they were mostly "other tribes we're competing/fighting with", which were the typical target of cannibalism in most human societies that practiced it regularly (as opposed to starvation situations like the Donner Party or that airplane crash.) They may look a little funny, but they're basically the neighbors, not just wildlife.
There are other reasons for it - some of the South Pacific islanders in Vanuatu have explained their motivation for cannibalism as "people are tasty", and that's pretty much why some Africans eat our near cousins like chimps and bonobos, which are about 98% like us. And there are occasional societies that practice it for magical reasons (it's currently a bad time to be albino in some parts of Africa, although the practitioners-of-traditional-medicine don't tend to actually eat the victims.) And we're certainly close enough cousins that eating undercooked apes and even monkeys is a really bad idea - seems to be where AIDS and a few other diseases have gotten to human populations from.
That's not to say that chimps are peace-loving hippies themselves - one of the more vicious things I've seen on TV nature channels was a gang of half a dozen chimps hunting and killing a monkey.
hansel and gretel: (Score:5, Insightful)
don't stray from mom and dad and go in the woods or the crazy lady will eat you
its a kids story, with a useful function, and also probably an oral historical memory of when this was real
"long pig" is the name in the south pacific for human meat. because, obviously, we taste like pig
which, as a lover of bacon, makes me a little nervous: i'd probably like the taste
i would wager that every single eyeball reading these words is the offspring, some great-great-great-ancestor, ate human flesh at some point
you can feel morally repulsed by that diea, but the human stomach outweighs your moral compass when push comes to shove, and famine was not an uncommon thing in human history
why so surprised? (Score:3, Insightful)
christians practice ritualistic cannibalism every sunday, body of christ, blood of christ, etc.
Re:Eating apes is pretty close to cannibalisim (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you draw the line?
At the "is it another species" line.
No = cannibalism.
Yes = not cannibalism, though it may still be weird or gross.
Denial - Not Just a River - Also Druids Cannibals (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh! (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't see the big deal here. People were always living on the edge of starvation. Why would anything be off the menu? The existence of kuru http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) [wikipedia.org] certainly suggests that it was not at all unusual. Particularly when it was likely a case of simply seeing the neatherthals as another animal.
Brett
just silly (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cain ate Abel (Score:3, Insightful)
You seem to be implying that myth tends to have no reasoning or value.
I'd suggest that attempting to explain the universe based on observable phenomenon is one of the most important traits of humanity: it's the foundation of culture, and usually where science begins, for example.
Re:Cain ate Abel (Score:3, Insightful)
While I'm not suggesting this cannibalism is the likely source of the Cain and Abel myth, I will disagree with you and state that most myths aren't just "made up". Many stories get "made up" yet only a few turn into myths. Also, the commonality of myths across cultures and times implies a root other than sheer imagination. It may be some retelling of a historical event. It may be an expression of some psychological need (Jung anyone?).
I just happened to glance at Julian May's "The Golden Torc" the other day and the idea kind of stuck. Nevertheless, don't discount the length of time that oral traditions can stick around. The Australian Aboriginal culture has many stories going back many thousands of years which preserved some elements of truth from the time of their origins. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aboriginal_mythology [wikipedia.org]
Just had another thought: Myths may be like hash-functions on history. There is definitely a link, however its pretty much one-way, i.e. you'd be hard-pressed to reverse engineer the history from the myth. However, knowing the history and the myth you might be able to determine the way the myth developed (the "hash function").
There, that should keep my geek cred up for a while.
minefield, hard to prove (Score:4, Insightful)
This kind of thing is a minefield, and very hard to prove. To see what I mean, do a google search on "cannibalism anasazi." People get emotional about certain scientific issues, and often the reason they're so emotional is that there's painful history involved, and/or a history of the misuse of science. For instance, it's theoretically a reasonable scientific topic to look for correlations between race and intelligence -- but if you try study it, you'll unleash such a shitstorm that you'll wish you hadn't. Part of this is because the topic isn't PC, but part is also because of history (eugenics, Nazism, Cyril Burt).
Cannibalism has historically been one of these scientific issues that are just hard to study because emotions run too high. For instance, you have the history of Europeans portraying Africans as savage cannibals (which made it easier for Americans to justify slavery, and for the Belgians to justify cutting people's arms off in Congo).
Some archaeologists and anthropologists have gone so far as to claim that cannibalism simply doesn't exist, and never has. Others have found physical evidence that they interpret as evidence of widespread cannibalism in certain societies. Still others say that it exists, but only in a ritualized form.
I'm not convinced that the chances are very good of coming to a definite conclusion about cannibalism that might have happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, when we can't even study the more recent cases.
Re:Reparations (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank you. Am I the only person that thinks it's wrong to apologize for defeating an enemy? The Indians were not by and large innocent weaklings. They killed and enslaved each other long before the white man landed in America. Their empires were large and spread throughout North and South Americas. If not for disease and fighting among themselves they might not have lost. The outcome was anything but sure.
Disclaimer: I'm Caucasian but with a large amount of Native American heritage. I think the worst thing the white man did to the indians was to not totally destroy their society and integrate them into ours. Their culture failed so why let them hang on to it and remain weak.
Re:Technicalities. (Score:5, Insightful)
How do you know the Neanderthals weren't the aggressors? But Humans being more intelligent were able to beat them into submission?
You frame your post like the big bad humans came in and exterminated the poor gentle defenseless Neanderthals because Humans are just so awful.
The swan song of the self deprececating urban 'intellectual'.
Nature's produced a hell of a lot worse and more blood thirsty killers than Humans.
Re:how is it cannibalism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pigs are quite smart.
Just get one of those brain interfaces for them to make it easier for them to control stuff.
Re:how is it cannibalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
But meat is meat. Just about any animal that lives near humans and isn't toxic has been eaten at some point, and often comes to be a regular item on the menu.
I thought about that Twilight Zone episode where the twist was that "To Serve Man" was actually a cookbook. I figured this was totally backward after watching a lot of Andrew Zimmern's Bizarre Foods show. There seems to be almost no living thing (an isn't deadly toxic) that humans won't eat. I think it's actually the aliens out there that would have to worry about us eating them, we've already tried everything edible on this planet.
Re:Technicalities. (Score:2, Insightful)
It took the pope a while to declare [wikipedia.org] that native americans were human.
Re:Technicalities. (Score:3, Insightful)
The swan song of the self deprececating urban 'intellectual'.
Nature's produced a hell of a lot worse and more blood thirsty killers than Humans.
All the GP said was "efficient." We are extremely efficient killers. We are geniuses when it comes to killing. Good for us. It's much better than starving to death, dying from infection, or letting our food animals die slowly. Not only that, we generally know when to restrain our killing.
You dopey anti-intellectual.
Re:"The Inheritors" (Score:3, Insightful)
Replace "Neanderthals" with "people whose customs and behaviour we don't understand" and you're there again.
We call it war. "on terror" is the current suffix, but this changes with time and flavor.
Re:Then lets simplify things... (Score:3, Insightful)
like nature does: could you mate with it and raise off-spring?
Nobody is really sure. Now what?
Also, interbreeding is not always a simple it's possible/impossible thing. Some people who are clearly the same species are uable to raise offspring. Between different but closely related species, it sometimes works, and sometimes it doesn't. Mules are usually infertile, but there are exceptions. Some species that are generally accepted as different species (dog, wolf, coyote, for example) can technically interbreed but rarely do so because of very different behavioural patterns.
It's just not as clear cut as people once thought. It rarely is.
Re:Technicalities. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm an omnivore, but that wasn't my point. My point was that humans for the most part aren't "blood thirsty". There's a difference between possesing an inherent urge to injure and kill animals every day, and a simple dietary preference. Also, a lion only eats meat - as you point out, humans are omnivorous and can exist on a purely non-meat diet.
You could argue that humans have a choice, but still eat meat, so therefore they are more culpable than a Lion, but again that isn't my point. I'm talking about individual behaviour, and the likelihood of a human desiring to perform a violent act. I think it's rather telling that people will eat meat, but the vast majority aren't prepared to kill anything for meat. I know the idea of having to kill a chicken makes me shudder, yet i'll happily guzzle a nice chicken curry without a second thought.
If you had a choice of being put in a cage with a lion or a human, which choice do you think is most likely to result in you being violently assaulted?
Re:how is it cannibalism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Being omnivorous scavengers is a great deal of why we're so successful as a species: Humans can and will make do with damnear any diet that approaches nutritious, or can be processed into being nutritious, even when other species can't make it. It may not be optimal but it'll be good enough for reproduction, and that's all nature cares about.