Evidence Confirms Wartime Cannibalism at Neolithic El Mirador Site
NORTHERN SPAIN, AUG 7 – Analysis of 650 bone fragments shows 11 individuals were butchered and cannibalized within days as a form of social control during Neolithic community conflicts, researchers say.
- On Thursday , researchers published in Scientific Reports that remains dating to roughly 5,700 years belong to 11 individuals killed and eaten at El Mirador cave in Spain.
- Researchers note the Neolithic period in Europe was marked by conflict and instability, with ethnographic studies suggesting warfare cannibalism as a form of 'ultimate elimination' between Late Neolithic herding communities about 5,700 years ago.
- Researchers using microscopy analysis revealed cut marks, human tooth marks, fractures, boiling signs, and evidence of skinning and flesh removal on bones from El Mirador cave.
- Merseydus states the episode transformed the El Mirador cave from livestock enclosure to collective burial place, not funerary tradition or famine response, as Francesc Marginedas explains.
- With this finding, Atapuerca now has three known cases of prehistoric cannibalism, including a 900,000-year-old example at Gran Dolina, supporting broader evidence of ancient practices.
26 Articles
26 Articles
A Neolithic family was massacred, skinned, skinned, disarticulated, fractured, cooked and devoured in a cave on the Iberian peninsula 5,600 years ago. At least 11 people, including adults, teenagers and children, died during a bloody event in the cave of El Mirador, at the southern end of the Sierra de Atapuerca.Keep reading...
A team of paleontologists has identified the massacre and cannibalism of eleven people, including children, in an episode of violence that occurred 5,700 years ago in one of the sites of the famous burgalese archaeological enclaveHallan in Atapuerca, the oldest and southernmost reindeer fossil in Eurasia: it rewrites the history of glacial fauna in Spain Researchers of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA…
Documented a new episode of cannibalism among local Neolithic communities in El Mirador cave
A multidisciplinary team of researchers has described a new case of neolithic cannibalism in Atapuerca without signs of rituals.
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