IN GOUGH’S cave in Cheddar Gorge, south-west England, archaeologists have discovered the stays of not less than six people. Most of the bones have been deliberately damaged and the fragments are coated in minimize marks, the results of individuals utilizing stone instruments to separate them and take away the flesh. What’s extra, 42 per cent of the bone fragments bear human tooth marks. There may be little doubt: the individuals who lived on this cave 14,700 years in the past practised cannibalism.
Right now, cannibalism is a taboo topic in lots of societies. We see it as aberrant, as is obvious in movies corresponding to The Texas Chain Noticed Bloodbath. We affiliate it with zombies, psychopaths and serial killers just like the fictional Hannibal Lecter. Optimistic tales of cannibals are few and much between. However maybe it’s time for a rethink as a result of, regardless of our preconceptions, proof is accumulating that cannibalism was a typical human behaviour.
Our ancestors have been consuming one another for 1,000,000 years or extra. The truth is, it appears that evidently, down the ages, round a fifth of societies have practised cannibalism. Whereas a few of this people-eating could have been carried out merely to outlive, in lots of circumstances, the explanations look extra advanced. In locations like Gough’s cave, for instance, consuming the our bodies of the useless appears to have been a part of a funerary ritual. Removed from a monstrous affront to nature, cannibalism could also be a method of displaying respect and love for the useless, say some archaeologists.
Tales of cannibals will be discovered all through human historical past. In Homer’s Odyssey,…
