Did a rival tribe kill and eat their neighbors 5,700 years ago?

Credit: IPHES-CERCA/Luis Quevedo/Madrid Scientific Films.

Human remains from 11 individuals recovered from El Mirador Cave in Spain showed evidence of cannibalism, archaeologists have concluded. According to a new paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the cannibalism was likely the result of a violent episode between competing Late Neolithic herding communities about 5,700 years ago.

“Cannibalism is one of the most complex behaviors to interpret, due to the inherent difficulty of understanding the act of humans consuming other humans," said co-author Palmira Saladié, a researcher at IPHES-CERCA and the Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV). "Moreover, in many cases we lack all the necessary evidence to associate it with a specific behavioral context. Finally, societal biases