Scientists found cut marks on a 850,000-year-old human neck bone. Was it … cannibalism?

A toddler’s neck bone discovered with clear cut-marks dating to about 850,000 years ago may be evidence that an ancient hominin species, Homo antecessor, cannibalized a child, according to archaeologists in Spain.

The researchers say the finding, announced July 24, is further indication of Paleolithic cannibalism at Gran Dolina cave in Spain’s Sierra de Atapuerca, where signs of ancient humans butchering one another have been found for decades.

“This is direct evidence that the child was processed like any other prey,” says Palmira Saladié, an archaeologist with the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA) and one of the leaders of the excavations where the neck bone was unearthed.

Decapitation did not always mean meat from the dead individual was consumed, she says. But in the case of this child, who was between two and four years old, she believes it was almost certain the individual was also eaten.

The toddler’s vertebra was found along with bones from nine other individuals, in a layer of sediment within the cave dated to about 850,000 years ago. Many of the bones also had cut marks, as well as fractures the researchers say seem to have been made to reach the marrow inside. But not everyone agrees with the team’s conclusions.

Homo antecessor’s cave

Gran Dolina and the Atapuerca site near the northern Spanish city of Burgos were uncovered in the 1890s, when a route for a new railway was cut through nearby mountains. Excavations since the 1960s have revealed broadly accepted evidence of cannibalism among the Homo antecessor group that lived there from about 900,000 years ago until their species went extinct, possibly a little more than 100,000 years later.

Scientists disagree on whether Homo antecessor was a direct ancestor of anatomically modern humans—Homo sapiens—or if it was a related species that died out.

Regardless, evidence from prehistoric archaeological sites—including the Mesolithic Gough’s Cave in the west of England and the Neolithic Herxheim site in Germany—indicates that early Homo sapiens, too, were sometimes cannibals. Signs of cannibalism among earlier human species, such as Neanderthals, have been found at archaeological sites all over the world, including some of the earliest evidence from Kenya.

In a few cases, what was once thought to be evidence of hominin cannibalism might actually be something else: stripping flesh from bones for a “reburial” perhaps, which has been suggested for Neolithic remains in France.

Cannibal controversy

Some experts disagree if the newfound cut-marks are evidence the child was cannibalized.

“Cannibalism is very rare,” says Michael Pante a paleoanthropologist from Colorado State University, who was not involved in the discovery. “It’s just not a common thing that we see.”

He says that although scientists claim to have found evidence of cannibalism from remains at several archaeological sites, and especially at Atapuerca, direct evidence of it is uncommon.

“This decapitation doesn’t mean they consumed that individual,” says Pante. “They were obviously cutting up a child for some reason, but there are a number of reasons they may have done that.” A funeral ritual is one possibility.

Pante also disagrees with a suggestion made by the researchers that early humans at Atapuerca hunted rival humans as a food resource.

“There is not a lot of evidence of that,” he says. Cannibalism among humans—even very early humans like these—was unusual for nutritional purposes and may have only occurred in rituals, he adds.

Other researchers are more convinced, however.

James Cole, an archaeologist and expert in early human cannibalism who was also not involved in the work, says the first evidence for cannibalism at Atapuerca was found almost 30 years ago.

“The new find in this respect is perhaps unsurprising,” he says, “but it is absolutely fascinating and hints at the rich story about our evolutionary past that the site still has to tell.”