Warm weather pushed Neanderthals into cannibalism [View all]
29 MARCH 2019
Butchered corpses coincide with rapid climate change, researchers discover. Dyani Lewis reports.
A rapid period of warming more than 120,000 years ago drove Neanderthals in the south of France to eat six of their own, new research suggests.
The study, by French researchers Alban Defleur and Emmanuel Desclaux and published in the Journal of Archaeological Science paints a bleak picture of life for Neanderthals living during the last interglacial period.
In the 1990s, the remains of six Neanderthals – two adults, two adolescents and two children – were found in a small cave at Baume Moula-Guercy in the Rhône valley in southern France.
The bones bear many of the hallmarks of cannibalism: cut marks made by stone tools, complete dismemberment of the individuals, and finger bones that look as if they’ve been gnawed by Neanderthal teeth, rather than by other carnivores.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/archaeology/warm-weather-pushed-neanderthals-into-cannibalism
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