Comments on: Early Cannibalism Tied to Territorial Defense?

By: Rob Gargett

Rob Gargett — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:12:15 +0000

Hi, Erin,
I really like your last sentence! And it’s well to be cautious. That’s because it’s still an open question whether or not the remains of H. antecessor were deposited, along with the rest of the animals, in the natural traps–vertical shafts–that feature in each of the localities in the Atapuerca Mountains. If so, eating the young might be less like cannibalism and more like an existential imperative. And until and unless these creatures are demonstrated, unequivocally, to possess the same cognitive abilities as you and I, we should also be wary of attaching too much emotional and symbolic weight to the actions of H. antecessor, which we choose to view as ‘cannibalism,’ and therefore ‘icky!’ Keep up the hunt. Rob

By: faithann

faithann — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 01:19:43 +0000

I agree w/eyebeam. Perhaps they did it because they were hungry and they simply could prey on the weak. Hominids were (I would assume), not in the least spiritually or ethically evolved yet, so what would it matter to kill the young? Not like now when we are so much higher evolved why we’d never think of killing the young and innocent……..or would we?

By: eyebeam

eyebeam — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:01:39 +0000

It’s possible that higher-ranking adults may have routinely eaten the children of lower-ranking adults, simply because they could. Once the taste for young flesh was established, and social dominance prevented opposition, a tradition would have been born. The tradition may have also served to limit population growth to stay within the bounds of local resources.

By: Raimo Kangasniemi

Raimo Kangasniemi — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 21:08:07 +0000

The existence of cannibalism over centuries doesn’t have to mean that the reason wouldn’t have suffered from a lack of food; the local population of Homo erectus – of which the antecessor is basically just an European variant – might have lived in a marginal environment, suffering repeatedly from food shortage and might have developed it’s own way of dealing with this: cannibalism.

The sex of the dead used for food would be interesting. If the majority of the dead would have been girls, this might have been an internal way of dealing with an “extra” population. The victims of infant and child murder committed for population control and family strategies tending to be more likely girls than boys.

If male, they might signify a change in dominant male kingroups in the local Homo erectus population, the eating of the sons of the defeated high ranking males being symbolic act.

From ancient Greece to the Aztec, eating the flesh of the kin of the vanquished (and forcing them to eat it) was a highly symbolic act that “fleshed out” the relationship between victor and loser. It sealed it.

By: Mike

Mike — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 22:15:00 +0000

It is also possible that it was simply a matter of “Waste not, want not.” Why waste a perfectly good child when it can be so easily consumed in a meal? Why waste labor digging a burial hole when eating the child is more labor preventive?