Early man ate children as part of everyday diet: study

Among the bones of bison, deer, wild sheep and other animals, scientists have discovered the butchered remains of at least 11 children and adolescents from a cave called Gran Dolina.

The bones, according to the researchers, show signs of cuts and other marks which will have been made by early stone tools, the Daily Mail reported. It appears that those were being smashed to extract nutritious marrow inside and there was evidence that the victims' brains may also have been eaten, they said.

Striek marks on the bone at the base of the skull also indicated that the humans had been decapitated, said the study's co-author Jose Maria Bermúdez de Castro of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain. "Probably then they cut the skull for extracting the brain. The brain is good for food," Bermúdez de Castro said.

The scientists believe that early man ate fellow humans both to fulfill his nutritional needs and to kill off neighbouring enemy tribes. Bones of humans that had been eaten spanned a period of around hundred thousand years, indicating that the practice was not just confined to times when food was scarce.

And the fact that the bones were discarded with those of other animals suggests that there was no religious significance to the practice, the scientists said. Because human and animal remains were tossed away together, the researchers speculate that cannibalism had no special ritual role linked to religious beliefs.

Bermudez de Castro said that the area surrounding the caves would have been a rich source of food so there would have been little need to turn to cannibalism as a last resort. Instead the practice was probably more widely used as a way of dealing with competition from neighbouring tribes. Children will have been targeted as they would have been less capable of defending themselves, the researchers said.