US EditionNeanderthals Cannibalized 'Outsider' Women and Children 45,000 Years Ago at Cave in Belgium
4 Articles
4 Articles
The Neanderthals who ate their neighbors
Neanderthals have received a necessary historical revision over the last few decades. Although many previous depictions presented our long-lost relative as a dimwitted evolutionary misfire, paleoarchaeological evidence now shows they were creative, artistic, and technologically proficient hominins. However, this more accurate picture isn’t entirely pretty. Judging from ancient evidence recovered from a cave in Belgium, at least some Neanderthal …
In Belgium, 45,000 years ago, Neanderthal women and children were killed, dismembered and consumed by other humans. This discovery, revealed by a study published on 19 November 2025 in Scientific Reports, is based on ten years of analysis conducted by researchers from the CNRS, the University of Bordeaux and the Aix-Marseille University. It concerns a set of bones found in the Goyet cave, one of the largest deposits of neanderthal remains modifi…
It was selective cannibalism. The victims were chosen with all intent. Adult women and small Neanderthal children. And it had nothing to do with any ritual or offering. It was a macabre feast in which members of a rival tribe were consumed between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago in the Troisième cavern of Goyet (Belgium).
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