11 dic 2011
The 32,000-year-old human remains reveal incriminating cut marks.
- The earliest known modern humans from southeast Europe wore shell and mammoth jewelry.
- The same early humans also likely practiced cannibalism.
- The cannibalism was tied to funeral rituals, since the bones were not butchered like meat.
Cut marks are seen on this early human bone recovered from southeastern EuropeThe remains, described in PLoS One, date to 32,000 years ago and represent the oldest direct evidence for anatomically modern humans in a well-documented context. The human remains are also the oldest known for our species in Europe to show post-mortem cut marks.
"Our observations indicate a post-mortem treatment of human corpses including the selection of the skull," co-author Stephane Pean, a paleozoologist and archaeologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, "We demonstrate that this treatment was not for nutritional purposes, according to comparison with game butchery treatment, so it is not a dietary cannibalism."
