How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans

[villager]

How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans

A fossil discovery bears marks of butchering similar to those made when cutting up a deer


One of science's most puzzling mysteries - the disappearance of the Neanderthals - may have been solved. Modern humans ate them, says a leading fossil expert.

The controversial suggestion follows publication of a study in the Journal of Anthropological Sciences about a Neanderthal jawbone apparently butchered by modern humans. Now the leader of the research team says he believes the flesh had been eaten by humans, while its teeth may have been used to make a necklace.

Fernando Rozzi, of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, said the jawbone had probably been cut into to remove flesh, including the tongue. Crucially, the butchery was similar to that used by humans to cut up deer carcass in the early Stone Age. "Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them," Rozzi said.

The idea will provoke considerable opposition from scientists who believe Neanderthals disappeared for reasons that did not involve violence. Neanderthals were a sturdy species who evolved in Europe 300,000 years ago, made complex stone tools and survived several ice ages before they disappeared 30,000 years ago - just as modern human beings arrived in Europe from Africa.

Some researchers believe Neanderthals may have failed to compete effectively with Homo sapiens for resources, or were more susceptible to the impact of climate change. But others believe our interactions were violent and terminal for the Neanderthals. According to Rozzi, the discovery at Les Rois in south-west France provides compelling support for that argument.


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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/17/neanderthals-cannibalism-anthropological-sciences-journal

[undergroundpanther]

1. cannibalism is

a facet of humanity's past, like bloody violent sacrifices and it continues up to recent times as torture and war.


Here are some weird things about cannibalism

http://listverse.com/crime/top-10-cases-of-human-cannibalism/

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0410_030410_cannibal.html

http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/377/14863_cannibalism.html

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Self-cannibalism

Modern humans have eaten up entire species of animals before, hunted them to extinction,so it is possible we ate the neanderthals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080811200028.htm
http://www.scienceray.com/Biology/Zoology/Five-Animals-Humans-Destroyed.117643

[Xithras]

20. Since Neanderthals were a different species, does it "count" as cannibalism?

We share the same genus, but Neanderthals weren't human.

[imdjh]

2. These guys crack me up.

One fossil and he's declaring that our ancestors munched the neanderthals?

Thank God he didn't find one face down with his legs spread.

[old mark]

3. I have seen something similar before - cut marks on Neanderthal

bones from stripping off the meat.

I am cerainly not surprised. If we hadn't eaten them, we would have made them into slaves. We probably did both.

mark

[elocs]

4. It is possible that all the explanations for the disappearance of Neanderthals may be true.

Plus we cannot really judge humans of 30,000 years ago by today's standards.

[Historic NY]

5. You mean they didn't become Repukeicans?

[villager]

6. if they were eaten, then metaphorically, they lost out to early day Republicans...

n/t

[moggie]

7. How does he know who did the butchery?

Neanderthals were tool-users. It's perfectly possible that this was a case of Neanderthal-on-Neanderthal cannibalism.

[imdjh]

8. Maybe they were literally too stupid to live. nt

[Thor_MN]

9. Maybe we "domesticated" them and only turned to goats and cattle after running out of Neanderthals?

[tom_paine]

10. Oh my gosh. I am...like...TOTALLY surprised!

:rofl:

Just another one of those things which anyone who has eyes can see almost certainly happened.

Look around you. Look at ourselves. Sheep led by psychopaths, THAT is the most accurate descriptor of all human societies everywhere throughout history, with a very few exceptions.

Those Neanderthals never had a chance.

Not a chance.

BTW, I'm sure not ALL of them were eaten. Some were enslaved and worked to death Some were just murdered.

[joshcryer]

11. They died due to the little ice age.

Simple as that. Humans had fat storage, neanderthals had lots of muscles. A neanderthal would completely obliterate a human. If, and this is a small if, this neanderthal was eaten by humans, it was probably not a regular practice. A neanderthal is still going to be a lot harder to kill for a primitive homosapian than, say, a lion.

[tom_paine]

12. The Neaderthals died out in the Dark Ages?

Don't remember reading about Neanderthals in Ancient Rome.

But they must have been there, according to you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

Methinks you need to educate yourself on the basics before you swim in deeper intellectual waters.

But it's a pretty tale you tell. Very pretty. Absolute and complete nonsense, but very pretty.

:rofl:

P.S. That H. Sapiens hunted and murdered the Neaderthals is not fully proven, and probably impossible to fully prove. The point I was making is that anyone with some halfway decent knowledge and insight into the 8000 years of human history, can see why it is a strong possiblity that being murdered, enslaved/woreked-to-death and/or eaten by H. Sapiens would be a contributing f not the major cause of the extinction of that species.

Of course, the rub for you, is that I said, "...anyone with some halfway decent knowledge and insight into the 8000 years of human history."

I'm afraid that excludes you, based on your previous post.

You have some history books to read, don't you now?

[joshcryer]

15. Your jeering language is quite noted.

[NickB79]

14. Neanderthals evolved and survived in the midst of a major ice age

They survived on the edge of glaciers, in -50F weather. The Little Ice Age would have been no problem at all for them to survive, fat or no fat.

Of course, all fossil evidence shows they died out 29,000 years BEFORE the Little Ice Age.

[joshcryer]

16. I picked the wrong ice age. It warmed up and they had a hard time surviving while competing with...

...homosapians. Some evidence suggests that they even became part of the human gene pool.

[Xithras]

19. The evidence now says there was no significant interbreeding.

There might have been some. After all, humans have sex with animals and inanimate objects today, so it's no stretch to believe that some might have had sex with another species that shared 99.5% of our genes, and it's probable that some offspring were created as a result. HOWEVER; there have now been several DNA studies of Neanderthal genes, and all say the same thing...the split happened hundreds of thousands of years ago, and no link was established afterward. While the occasional hybrid may have existed, the genes from those hybrids never made it far in the human gene pool.

[L. Coyote]

13. Cannibalism is attributed to groups terminated by genocide.

It is called rationalization!
And we have very good historical examples:

The Cannibalism Paradigm: ...
http://www.jqjacobs.net/anthro/cannibalism.html

[IndianaGreen]

17. That was the basis for William Golding's novel 'The Inheritors'

Neanderthals were peaceful and vegetarian, while our ancestors were war like and cannibalistic.

[tj2001]

18. Did they taste like chicken???

[MrMonk]

21. How often could H.S. and H.N. have met?

How many of them could there have been 30,000 years ago?

My impression has been of little bands of people wandering around and occasionally seeing each other somewhere in the distance.

That wouldn't provide much opportunity for one species to wipe out the other.