It's 800,000 BCE. Do you know where your children are? *burp*

[Syt]

Torygraph: First Europeans were cannibals with taste for children

Early Europeans were cannibals with a particular taste for the flesh of children, archaeologists have claimed.

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.

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.

Jose Maria Bermudez de Castro, one of the co-directors of the Atapuerca project, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, said: "It is the first well-documented case of cannibalism in the history of humanity."

The remains discovered in the caves "appeared scattered, broken, fragmented, mixed with other animals such as horses, deer, rhinoceroses, all kinds of animals caught in hunting" and eaten by humans, he explained.

"This gives us an idea of cannibalism as a type gastronomy, and not as a ritual," he said.

The remains are thought to belong to Homo antecessor, named after the Latin word for pioneer or explorer because they are the first humans who reached Europe after a long migration from Africa.

They spread through the Middle East, northern Italy and France before settling in the Atapuerca region in Spain, a fertile site at the confluence of two rivers which was heavily forested and provided an abundance of wild animals.

Scientists believe the abundance of good hunting meant the early Europeans did not need to resort to eating each other but did anyway.

"They did not practice cannibalism through a lack of food," explained Dr de Castro. "They killed their rivals and used the meat."

His team has determined that the practice continued through generations and that the majority of the victims were children or adolescents.

"We have also discovered two levels that contain cannibalised remains, which means that it was not a one-off thing, but continued through time," he said.

"Another interesting aspect ... is that most of the 11 individuals that we have identified were children or adolescents".

"We think that there are also two young adults including a female, which indicates that they killed the base of the demographic pyramid of the group."

You are what you eat.

[Malthus]

Heh, I always love how confident people are about the meaning of the evidence they uncover.

Scientists believe the abundance of good hunting meant the early Europeans did not need to resort to eating each other but did anyway.

"They did not practice cannibalism through a lack of food," explained Dr de Castro. "They killed their rivals and used the meat."

[KRonn]

Strange.... You'd think they would keep captives and make them part of their tribe/group. Given the apparent fighting with other tribes that this seems to suggest, along with high rates of mortality and tough living, it would seem a tribe would do all it could to raise its numbers.

[Queequeg]

Why would they eat captive adolescent girls?  It makes a lot more sense, if game is plentiful, to "take her into the fold". 

[Malthus]

One could equally posit that the lack of adult remains indicates that they were not eating their "rivals", but their own kids during periods of starvation - in short the exact opposite of what they concluded.

[Queequeg]

One could equally posit that the lack of adult remains indicates that they were not eating their "rivals", but their own kids during periods of starvation - in short the exact opposite of what they concluded.

A lot of species (including mammals) do this. Yeah, this seems like (if anything) a more rational conclusion from the evidence here. 

[jimmy olsen]

Heh, I always love how confident people are about the meaning of the evidence they uncover.

Scientists believe the abundance of good hunting meant the early Europeans did not need to resort to eating each other but did anyway.

"They did not practice cannibalism through a lack of food," explained Dr de Castro. "They killed their rivals and used the meat."

Or it might just be easier to kill young humans than other wild animals.

[Malthus]

Or it might just be easier to kill young humans than other wild animals.

Young children are very easy to kill, but their parents typically take exception to this.

It is a mark of how bad-ass we are as a species that our young are defenseless, clumsy and that their reaction to pain and fear is to make a LOUD NOISE.

The reason is pretty simple - threats to kids tend to motivate adult human parents to extremes of violence. Hunting young humans would have been, for that reason, a most unsafe food supply.

[Berkut]

Heh, I always love how confident people are about the meaning of the evidence they uncover.

Scientists believe the abundance of good hunting meant the early Europeans did not need to resort to eating each other but did anyway.

"They did not practice cannibalism through a lack of food," explained Dr de Castro. "They killed their rivals and used the meat."

Indeed. I hesitate to question the pros, but...how can you really draw these kinds of conclusions without lots of strongly corroborating evidence?

[KRonn]

In earlier civilized societies the rates of infant and child mortality were very high. So in pre-historic times it must have been a huge issue, losing so many children. That itself would seem to be a cause for concern of the tribe surviving, so eating their healthy young would seem to be out of the question; aside from the clashes with parents and families. As I'm thinking about this though, given that many children did die young of natural causes, maybe they would cannibalize those? Still seems gross but it would have to be considered from their pre-historic society and subsistence life style, I guess.

[Razgovory]

Fortuantly my ancestor's are Americans.  Not filthy Europeans.

[Malthus]

Indeed. I hesitate to question the pros, but...how can you really draw these kinds of conclusions without lots of strongly corroborating evidence?

It is also totally counterintuitive. One need look no further than modern hunter-gartherers to know that hunting isn't always a totally secure food supply.

The Algonquins, for example, had a cultural horror of cannibalism, exactly because there were so many occasions in which the food supply would fail and they would be tempted to it.

[jimmy olsen]

Indeed. I hesitate to question the pros, but...how can you really draw these kinds of conclusions without lots of strongly corroborating evidence?

It is also totally counterintuitive. One need look no further than modern hunter-gartherers to know that hunting isn't always a totally secure food supply.

The Algonquins, for example, had a cultural horror of cannibalism, exactly because there were so many occasions in which the food supply would fail and they would be tempted to it.

They lived in an environment already heavily effected by human beings however, one would think in the more pristine ecosystem there would be more resources available.

[Phillip V]

God should not have allowed this.

[The Brain]

God should not have allowed this.

In all fairness I've seen worse threads on Languish.