Europeans would eat, not bury, their dead 15,000 years ago: Study

Cannibalism, or eating another individual of the same species, was common in Europe some 15,000 years ago, a study published in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews has revealed.

It also revealed that people would eat their dead relatives, not out of compulsion but as part of culture and tradition.

The research specifically focused on the Magdalenian period of the late Upper Paleolithic era. The Magdalenians lived some 11,000 to 17,000 years ago.

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“[It is] undeniable, that the frequency of cannibalistic cases among Magdalenian sites exceeds any incidence of this behaviour among earlier or later hominin groups, and suggests that mortuary cannibalism was a method Magdalenian people used to dispose of their deceased,” the study said.

Shocking observations

When scientists from London’s National History Museum reviewed 59 Magdalenian sites, they were able to detect evidence of human remains with chewing marks and skull bones with cut marks at 15 of the sites.

The research also indicated that remains of humans would likely be mixed with those of animals, and then consumed as food.

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“Instead of burying their dead, these people were eating them,” study coauthor Silvia Bello, a paleoanthropologist and principal researcher at the National History Museum, said in a press release.

“That in itself is interesting, because it is the oldest evidence of cannibalism as a funerary practice so far known,” Bello added.

Connection between burial practices and genetic heritage

Researchers successfully extracted genetic data from eight locations, integrating it with archaeological findings to establish a connection between burial practices and genetic heritage.

Their investigation revealed the coexistence of two distinct ancestral groups in the area during that era: one representing the Magdalenian culture, and the other associated with the Epigravettian culture, which differed significantly in terms of both culture and geography.

Notably, individuals from the Magdalenian culture in northwestern Europe exhibited a preference for funerary cannibalism, while those from the Epigravettian culture opted for burying their deceased without such practices.

“We believe that the change in funerary behaviour identified here is an example of demic diffusion where essentially one population comes in and replaces another population and that brings about a change in behaviour,” said William Marsh, a postdoctoral researcher at the museum, in the press release.

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