Did Neandertals Dine In?

摘要

Researchers have long debated whether the highly carnivorous Neandertals sometimes ate each other. And although some claims have not held up, in recent years new evidence for this macabre hypothesis has emerged {Science, 1 October 1999, p. 18). But few sites have enough complete Nean-dertal bones to tell for sure.rnIn Tarragona, paleoanthropologist Antonio Rosas of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid presented the latest evidence from the cave of El Sidron in northwest Spain. There, his team has found 1700 Neandertal bones representing at least 11 children and adults dated to about 49,000 years ago. Many of the more complete bones, including those of the arms, legs, and skull, show cut marks, pitting, scarring, deliberate breaking of bones for marrow extraction, and other signs that the bodies were cut up in the same way that hominins butcher animals-the gold standard for signs of cannibalism.