US EditionEvidence 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 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…
A multidisciplinary team of researchers has described a new case of neolithic cannibalism in Atapuerca without signs of rituals.
A group of archaeologists have discovered hundreds of human remains from more than 5,000 years ago in a cave on the southern slope of Atapuerca (Burgos). There would be nothing strange about them, the burgalese mountain range being the most important European site for the study of human prehistory. But in this case the osamentas present signs of “anthropogenic modifications”, as their discoverers call them. These changes are nothing other than m…
All the individuals were of local origin and scientists believe that they were consumed in a very short period of time. Their hypothesis is that it was due to a violent confrontation between neighboring groups, and not because of a famine or during some kind of funeral ritual. Read
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