We’ll have our neighbours for dinner — raw
A site in Spain has revealed how Neanderthals butchered and fed on a family of 12, including children
Neanderthals may have resorted to cannibalism when short of food
SCIENTISTS have found the site of a Neanderthal massacre, where a group of
them slaughtered and ate a dozen of their fellow early humans.
Researchers have used CSI-style forensic techniques to reconstruct what
happened, with DNA and other evidence suggesting that the victims were all
members of the same family and included children as young as two.
“They appear to have been killed and eaten, with their bones and skulls split
open to extract the marrow, tongue and brains,” said Carles Lalueza-Fox of
the Institute of Evolutionary Biology in Barcelona, who detailed his
findings at the Royal Society in London last week.
“The victims included three female and three male adults, three boys aged
12-15 and three children aged from two to nine years. All had been
butchered. It must have been a big feast.
“We think Neanderthal groups were about 10-12 strong so this may have been a