Cannibal Britons?

[Lallans]

Thankfully, I guess, this came out after the film "The Eagle" was released, so portrayal of the human skull drinking cups will have to wait for a sequel:

Cannibal Britons drank from skulls

By Richard Alleyne, The Daily TelegraphFebruary 16, 2011 3:02 PM

A gruesome discovery in the Cheddar Gorge suggests ancient Britons indulged in cannibalism and drank from the skulls of their victims.

Scientists have analysed the remains of three humans - including a child of three - who appear to have been killed for food, butchered, and eaten. The bones showed evidence of precision cuts to extract the maximum amount of meat and the skulls were carved into cups and bowls.

The fragments, which are 14,700 years old, are thought to be the oldest examples in the world of skull cups and represent the first evidence of ritual killing found in Britain. At the time, humans knew how to bury their dead, meaning the remains are most likely the result of premeditated cannibalism.

"At the time, life was very tough," said Prof Chris Stringer, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, who helped excavate the cups from Gough's Cave, in Somerset. "Cannibalism would have been a good way of removing groups competing with you and getting food for yourself.

"There was also a feeling that if you ate your enemy you gained some of his power."

"What is more sinister is that these were quite sophisticated hunter-gatherers - very like us," he added. "They could make tools and painted cave art. They also had quite complex burials for the people they were not eating, treating the dead with reverence."

© Copyright (c) The Daily Telegraph

[Burly Brute]

How do they know FOR SURE the skull cups werent crafted after the people died of "natural" causes?

[Lallans]

I too want to know more, particularly about the cannibal angle. Knife marks on the bones would show they were defleshed, but more than one culture has done that for ceremonial rather than dining purposes. So, are there human gnaw marks on them as well? Were the long bones broken open and the marrow scooped out? Was a "How To Cook Your Kin" paleo-cookbook found nearby?

[Chas]

I do not doubt for a minute that some ancient Britons were cannibals, but all the same there is some sloppy reporting here.

"Cannibalism would have been a good way of removing groups competing with you and getting food for yourself.

Just killing them would have been a good way of removing competing groups.

"There was also a feeling that if you ate your enemy you gained some of his power."

Just where did they write that down? Or did they put a tweet on twitter?

"What is more sinister is that these were quite sophisticated hunter-gatherers - very like us," he added. "They could make tools and painted cave art. They also had quite complex burials for the people they were not eating, treating the dead with reverence."

"for the people they were not eating" - makes it sound like rule to eat people - contrary to all the evidence so far. I think Prof Chris Stringer and The Daily Telegraph can do better.

Regards

Chas

[bigdad1]

The Norse toast "Skoal" is generally accepted to refer to the drinking cup the Viking warriors were using. Just where they got that cup from is another story.

The idea that one would gather strength from the flesh of ones enemies is common around the world to the various cannibal tribes and has been noted since the first civilized contacts with those tribes by both written and oral histories. Just as our Native Americans felt they gained strength by counting coup.

[Dall_Piobaire]

Too much inferred from far too little information and, at best, assumption.

Sounds more sensationalism at work here, news aint what it used to be.

I could be wrong, I an not an Anthropologist, but it seems that any culture we have evidence of, say New Guinea for example, used cannabalism and heading purely ceremonially, I believe the Kelts were head hunters as well, but again to capture the percieved spiritual power of the foe.

[Drac]

While cannibalism existed there are still cultures that used human bones as implements without cannibalism. On example would be in Buddhism skull cups/bowls.

Sorry this gets disgusting.

If they truly wished to know if cannibalism was done they would need to find some form of waste pit. The eating of human flesh leaves markers in feces. I believe amino acids. I am trying to remember a science report I read years ago (I work in the mail room of a pharmaceutical research company and would sometimes glance through the pubs) about tracing movements Aztec priests believed to have escaped. They were tracing a pattern in ritual cannibalism moving north in areas where no such practices were ever known.

On the absorbing of the enemies powers is a common concept but I never have come across in anything but in fiction. My wife thinks that the Native American may have practiced this with animals.


Jim



Jim

[Chas]

Hi Jim,

I think that the problem is that 14,700 years have elapsed. There would be very little usable material, if any at all. I have seen Viking faeces at York (Jorvik) and it is all petrified. In fact they were selling 'Viking Poo Pendants' for the ladies and cuff-links for the men, in the gift shop. The idea was that it was inert and in no way usable - and only 2,000 years old.

Regards

Chas

[sydnie7]

Hi Jim,

I think that the problem is that 14,700 years have elapsed. There would be very little usable material, if any at all. I have seen Viking faeces at York (Jorvik) and it is all petrified. In fact they were selling 'Viking Poo Pendants' for the ladies and cuff-links for the men, in the gift shop. The idea was that it was inert and in no way usable - and only 2,000 years old.

Regards

Chas

Oh, you'd be surprised. Google up Paleofeces (or Palaeofaeces, if you prefer).

[Dall_Piobaire]

While cannibalism existed there are still cultures that used human bones as implements without cannibalism. On example would be in Buddhism skull cups/bowls.

Sorry this gets disgusting.

If they truly wished to know if cannibalism was done they would need to find some form of waste pit. The eating of human flesh leaves markers in feces. I believe amino acids. I am trying to remember a science report I read years ago (I work in the mail room of a pharmaceutical research company and would sometimes glance through the pubs) about tracing movements Aztec priests believed to have escaped. They were tracing a pattern in ritual cannibalism moving north in areas where no such practices were ever known.

On the absorbing of the enemies powers is a common concept but I never have come across in anything but in fiction. My wife thinks that the Native American may have practiced this with animals.


Jim

Good post,

I had seen a NATGEO documentry where in, I believe, they were tracing the footsteps of, I want to say David Eisenhaur, but I am not sure it was him. Anyway, they interviewed one of the last remaing tribesman from Papua would had actually seen cannibalism and head shrinking ceremony.
He was quite clear about the purpose, and that was to caputure can hold on to the spirit of the enemy warrior, the shrunken head, and in eating the captive, they took on the ferocity of their foe.

He said that this was performed with a tremendous amount of respect for the victem....I'll take freedom thanks.



Jim