Humans living on the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic period may have eaten their neighbors in one grim and grisly act of social violence, new evidence reveals.

At least 11 individuals – including children and adolescents – appear to have been skinned, defleshed, disarticulated, fractured, cooked, and eaten by other people, according to the marks on bones dating back to 5,709–5,573 years ago, found in El Mirador cave in Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain.

Even more intriguingly, the evidence suggests that all of this cannibalism occurred at around the same time, in a single, possibly isolated incident. This suggests that the people living there at the time were not habitual cannibals, but may have engaged in the practice for extenuating reasons, such as local inter-clan conflict.

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