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About 15,000 years ago in Gough's Cave, near Bristol in the UK, a group of people ate parts of each other.
They de-fleshed and disarticulated the bones, then chewed and crushed them. They may also have cracked the bones to extract the marrow inside.
It was not only adults that showed signs of being eaten. A three-year-old child and two adolescents all had the tell-tale marks of being nibbled on.
Some of their skulls were even modified into ornaments called "skull cups", which may have been used to drink out of.
What was going on in Gough's Cave? Was this an example of human violence between rivals, a strange kind of ritual behaviour, or simply a desperate bid for survival?
Article: http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161011-the-people-who-ate-each-other
Archived: https://archive.fo/JeZdl
Archived: https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20161011-the-people-who-ate-each-other
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @08:02AM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Monday October 17 2016, @10:00AM
What was going on in Gough's Cave? Was this an example of human violence between rivals, a strange kind of ritual behaviour, or simply a desperate bid for survival?
Or just primitive humans, unfettered by the arbitrary taboos of 'modern' (as in, new fangled stuff from the last 10,000 years) civilization, not letting good nutrition and tool-making materials go to waste.
15,000 years ago the extent of respect for the dead may have been "don't eat the green wobbly bit" until these new ideas from foreign parts (i.e. more than a day's walk away) about "burial", "cremation" and "CJD" started trending on FaceRock. Its dodgy enough applying 2016 values to historical events barely out of living memory, let alone pre-history.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 17 2016, @10:10AM
Facerock: it's what I use to smash your face in before I steal your food and rape your corpse. Simpler times, those were the good old days.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday October 17 2016, @12:12PM
This: "Kuru is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder endemic to tribal regions of Papua New Guinea. It is a type of transmissible spongiform encephalopathy, caused by a prion found in humans." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease) [wikipedia.org] and other diseases might be a good reason to avoid it.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by ledow on Monday October 17 2016, @01:33PM
No different to CJD and yet people still eat cows.
I very much doubt that such a disease is in such prevelance that it would stop you going near ANY part of body, or even specifically the brain if you're a prehistoric human who's unlikely to live until 30 or be able to put 2 and 2 together when it comes to eating brains and catching a disease months, or even years, later.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday October 17 2016, @02:14PM
Eating cows' brains, people, people brains - it's just to unpleasant to continue this dialog. You win.
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Monday October 17 2016, @06:43PM
Remind me the URL of the site we're on.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 2) by weeds on Monday October 17 2016, @07:38PM
Ha!
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday October 18 2016, @08:40AM
Eating cows' brains, people, people brains
Braaains!!! [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Funny) by theluggage on Monday October 17 2016, @08:32PM
This: "Kuru is an incurable degenerative neurological disorder endemic to tribal regions of Papua New Guinea.
I did mention CJD (same sort of thing).
15k years ago, the risk was probably insignificant compared to the other ways your food could kill you (e.g. being unco-oporative about becoming your food). However, just goes to show that most modern religions are just helpful tips for food safety gone horribly wrong.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Tuesday October 18 2016, @03:57AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Monday October 17 2016, @10:47AM
...our future
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday October 17 2016, @04:21PM
This is what we get when we play too many games of Cards Against Humanity. Seriously, "nibbled on" for child cannibalism?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Monday October 17 2016, @04:23PM
A quick Google search reveals that there are many species that are cannibalistic for one reason or another. Is it really a surprise that 15k years ago we were subject to the same natural pressures?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by tibman on Monday October 17 2016, @06:12PM
A few years ago i "rescued" a praying mantis before winter. She was huge and kept hanging out by the door and waving her arms at me as i went by. Had a nice big terrarium and fed her crickets from a nearby shop. She laid an eggcase and 30+ baby mantises came out. It was like highlander in there. Constant skirmishes, feints, retreats, ambushes. Everyone ate everyone. Normal food was plentiful too. They just had to kill or be killed. I bought a bunch of tiny terrariums and ended up with several adults that were released back into the wild. Felt like releasing a bunch of hyper-aggressive velociraptors into someone's cow pasture. All the other insects just hatching or coming out of hiding didn't stand a chance. The mother died just before the spring release (old age). Saving that one mantis resulted in the death of hundreds of crickets, dozens of baby mantises, and thousands of fruit flies. Reinforced to me that nature is brutal and scary. So if you see a "cute" mantis asking for a winter home.. just pass it by.
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(Score: 2) by srobert on Monday October 17 2016, @05:57PM
People
People who eat people
Are the hungriest people in the world.