Cannibalism

Cannibalism. Gran Dolina.

In 1994, several dozen human bones were discovered at Level TD6 of Gran Dolina. They bore evidence of the oldest known cases of cannibalism recorded to date. As if the discovery of a new species, named Homo antessor by the team, possibly amongst the first populations to arrive in Europe, was not enough, a detailed study also yielded irrefutable proof of cannibalism.

The diet of these hominids included fauna species including horse, rhinoceros, fallow deer, mink and wild boar, plants and fruit such as nettle tree seeds, as well as human beings, to be more precise, their congeners.

To accept that the carcasses found on these levels were really consumed by humans, several issues had to be clarified. For example, whether the bones bore similar cut marks to those found on animal fossils, and whether the remains were mixed with animal bones and stone tools, i.e., lacking any special treatment or arrangement to suggest a ritual in which corpses were dismembered and defleshed but not consumed. This evidence has been found in TD6.