Early Europeans were cannibals
Jun 27th, 2009
From the Telegraph: 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. [continue]
Replace “regularly” with “sometimes” and maybe – a few finds elsewhere have indicated as much.
But note this is of “Homo antecessor” not the much-later (by several hundred thousand years) Neanderthal or Cro-Magnon. Perhaps it was fairly normal for this group? Not entirely unknown in other species: a tom cat will try to kill cubs of other males…