Early man "butchered and ate the brains of children as part of everyday diet"

Because human and animal remains were tossed away together, the researchers speculate that cannibalism had no special ritual role linked to religious beliefs. Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk...

Maybe the actual act of ingesting the children was significant in itself. I can certainly see a certain logic in a child that has met with an untimely fate be eaten by it's own tribe, what once came from the mother goes back to the mother and all that jazz.

A new study of fossil bones in Spain shows that cannibalism was a normal part of daily life around 800,000 years ago among Europe’s first humans.

First thing I noticed. Humans didn't exist 800,000 years ago, so the article is either making generalizations or dumbing down the terminology. I can't view it, but yeah the "every day diet" thing is dead wrong. I'm sure it happened, but it's not like they ate human every day, unless it was maybe just the leaders. That wouldn't be sustainable if everyone did it. Isn't it a large leap of logic to go from finding 9 children that were killed and eaten, to go to "child brains where eaten as part of their every day diet".

Originally posted by Barcs

A new study of fossil bones in Spain shows that cannibalism was a normal part of daily life around 800,000 years ago among Europe’s first humans.

First thing I noticed. Humans didn't exist 800,000 years ago, so the article is either making generalizations or dumbing down the terminology.

Actually, they did. H. sapiens (archaic) is at least that old; Australopithecus is up to 4 million years old.

I can't view it, but yeah the "every day diet" thing is dead wrong. I'm sure it happened, but it's not like they ate human every day, unless it was maybe just the leaders. That wouldn't be sustainable if everyone did it. Isn't it a large leap of logic to go from finding 9 children that were killed and eaten, to go to "child brains where eaten as part of their every day diet".

edit on 6-2-2012 by Barcs because: (no reason given)

Agree completely -- the article is just one of those "over the top" sensationalist reports based on very little evidence.

Originally posted by Byrd
Actually, they did. H. sapiens (archaic) is at least that old; Australopithecus is up to 4 million years old.

It seems like it's just a terminology thing, because some people consider humans as any 'homo' species. If that's the case then that is correct, I guess I've always just referred to humans as homo sapiens. Australopithecus isn't a homo species however, so I don't think they'd count as humans because they aren't even the same genus.



Maybe this chart is a little outdated, but I see homo sapiens emerging around 200,000 years ago. 800K was when homo erectus and homo antecessor ruled. Perhaps a better word would be modern humans when describing the more recent evolutionary development of our species I suppose. Thanks for clearing that up