Cannibalism in prehistoric Europe

ARnmE5 Evolutionary Anthropology 93

Cannibalism in Prehistoric Europe PAOLA VILLA

The key argument for the identification of prehistoric cannibalism is provided by analysis of close similarities in the treatment of human and animal remains. Such analysis requires precise data on depositional context, meticulous excavation records, detailed bone modification studies, a relatively large sample of human and animal postcranial bones, and data on local mortuary practices. With the exception of Fontbregoua Cave, these necessary conditions are lacking at all Stone Age European sites where it has been hypothesized that cannibalism occurred. The alternative hypothesis of secondary burial practices has been proposed informally for some sites and, in a more formal and detailed way, for Krapinaand Fontbregoua. However, this hypothesis does not have a higher probability, is not justified by current data, and uses ethnographic analogies to prop up interpretations of materials for which contextual data are missing or have been neglected. At Fontbregoua, cannibalism remains the simplest and most plausible explanation of the evidence; at Krapina and other sites the available evidence is insufficient to prove either secondary burial or cannibalism.

In European societies cannibalism has been a taboo since at least Greek and Roman times. Then and later, anthropophagy implied deviant or sav- age behavior; the practice was often attributed to primitive tribes in far- away countries-people at the edges of "civilized" society. With colonial- ism, the question of whether or under what circumstances non-Western societies condoned such an apparently maladaptive, extremely asocial behavior became increasingly debated. Ex- tended to Stone Age societies, cannibalism was often attributed to archaic hominids (Neandertals and Homo erectus). But is European Homo sapiens really too close to us to be a cannibal?

Paola Villa is Research Associate at the University of Colorado Museum. Her research interests include the Old World Paleolithic and archaeological methods. She has written Terra Amata and the Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of Southern France (1983) and several articles on Acheulean lithics, site formation processes, bone modification, and prehistoric cannibalism.

Key words: Cannibalism, secondary burial, human remains, European Paleolithic and Neolithic

BACKGROUND

Historic Cannibalism in Europe Aside from modem cases of canni-

balism resulting from insanity, three kinds of cannibalism have been reported in European historic documents. The medicinal use of small quantities ofembalmed, or dried body parts is documented in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries in parts of Europe, especially Eng- land; drinking of human blood for cur- ing certain illnesses was also recommended. Both behaviors are a form of cannibalism,' although these are different from the ordinary understanding of cannibalism, that is, the eating of human flesh.

During the Middle Ages, acts of survival cannibalism driven by the need to prevent starvation are reluctantly mentioned in twelve chronicles describing nine great famines in France and Germany that occurred between 793 and 1032.2 After the eleventh century, survival cannibalism is no longer reported in Europe (which does not necessarily mean it never occurred). The progress in agricultural techniques and the economic prosperity of the following centuries, added to the

horror and shame surrounding the act, explain its disappearance from ar- chival sources.

Aggressive cannibalism is also reported in historic sources. In contrast to the private, often secret, acts of survival cannibalism, aggressive cannibalism is an antisocial act performed in public in ritual revenge. Not sur- prisingly, reports of such acts are heavily colored by ideological biases. Thus, French chronicles repeatedly accused peasants of having murdered and mutilated king's officers and aris- tocrats and then eating their flesh during popular revolts against the royal authority and taxation that occurred between 1300 and 1600 A.D. Similar accusations were made against prot- estants during the wars of religion. In 1573 Huguenots were said to have shot and eaten the mummified body of Saint Fulcran, which had been preserved for centuries in the cathedral of Lodeve, a small town in southern F r a n ~ e . ~ According to popular sources, in 1617 the populace ex- humed the body and ate the heart of Concino Concini, the hated favorite of Maria de' Medici. The veracity of such historic reports of cannibalism need not concern us here. It is interesting, however, that in French and other European cultures cannibalism is seen as a rare form of deviant behavior that can result not only from extreme hunger, but also extreme hatred. Many Europeans are not particularly upset by the idea that their prehistoric an- cestors may have engaged in such an activity. After all, our historic ances- tors occasionally did so, although our society did not and does not condone such behavior.

In 1986, when we published evidence that cannibalistic behavior had been practiced at FontbrCgoua Ca~e ,~ ,5 a Neolithic site in the Pro- vence region, under excavation by Jean Courtin of the French CNRS,

94 Evolutionary Anthropology ARTICLES

some of our American colleagues pre- dicted adverse reactions, if not from archeologists, certainly from the general public. Instead, French newspa- per and magazines greeted the news with abandon, with headlines such as “Nos ancCtres cannibales!” Having cannibals in their ancestry did not seem to upset even the citizens of Salernes, the village near which the cave site of FontbrCgoua is situated.

Cannibalistic Societies In English-speaking countries,

however, putative cases of prehistoric cannibalism are considered with extreme reluctance and skepticism, especially since the 1979 publication of “The Man-eating Myth by William Ar- ens.6 Skeptics often refer to the question of whether early societies were cannibalistic: that is, whether they practiced cannibalism under more or less normal conditions. The view that cannibalism was characteristic of poorly developed societies has roots in social evolutionary theories of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,’ which tended to find parallels between prehistoric and non-western “primitive” societies. However, as Ar- ens showed, the evidence of socially sanctioned cannibalism in primitive societies is weak, since reports by ethnographers and missionaries are colored by ideological biases. Since Arens’ book, skeptics tend to move from discussions of specific evidence at a specific site to higher-level interpretations of institutionalized behavior, setting up a “straw-man’’ argument that is egregiously mislead- ing. The reasoning goes like this: There is “no solid, reliable evidence from any period for human (read ‘socially sanctioned’) cannibalism”8; thus, assertions that cannibalism occurred a t a specific site must be viewed with extreme skepticism. Ac- cordingly, hypotheses of prehistoric cannibalism must be proven beyond all question and based on standards of evidence higher than those required by normal science or judicial courts. An acceptable item of evidence might be, for example, a human coprolite containing human remains9

This attitude seems to be an application of Ockham’s razor. According to this principle, we must, when con-

~~~ ~~ ~~~

fronted with competing explanations, favor the simplest one. In this case, de- termining which hypothesis is simplest is no easy matter. In fact, within the context of European prehistory, the secondary burial hypothesis fa- vored by skeptics is neither a likelier nor a simpler explanation than cannibalism.

At any rate a case of cannibalism does not make a society of cannibals. Moreover, cases of noninstitutional- ized cannibalism have been histori- cally documented: it therefore seems more useful to avoid taking sides in general debates and, instead, to consider individual facts and observations.

. . .poor recording of excavation data, lack of precise evidence on the mode of bone disposal and the high frequency of postdepositional disturbances have often made impossible a rigorous assessment of the cannibalism hypothesis.

Recognizing Cannibalism in the Prehistoric Record

In Old World prehistory, disarticulated and scattered human bones have been interpreted as food remains if they show traces of violence. The following have been interpreted as traces of violence and, hence, cannibalism: 1) skulls that are missing their bases or that have depressed fractures; 2) bones that bear cutmarks made by stone tools; 3) long bones that are split lengthwise or have spiral fractures for the extraction of marrow; 4) burned bones; and 5 ) a pattern of selective representation of body parts suggest- ing that only portions of the body were kept or transported to the site.

Weidenreich and Gorjanovic- Kramberger used such evidence to ar- gue that cannibalism occurred a t

Zhoukoudhian and at Krapina, re- spectively. Under careful scrutiny, most of this evidence can be ascribed, with equal or greater plausibility, to nonhuman agencies: attrition and destruction by carnivores and scaven- gers, fractures caused by trampling and sediment pressure, and burning as a chance process in an area where fireplaces were lit.Io The problem is that it is often impossible to show that human remains have not been af- fected by postdepositional damage. Excavations carried out before the 1960s provide little information on the exact provenience and disposition of materials, the type of sediments present or processes of natural distur- bance. Indeed, poor recording of excavation data, lack of precise evidence on the mode of bone disposal, and the high frequency of postdepositional disturbances have often made impossible a rigorous assessment of the cannibalism hypothesis.

If we consider both the varieties of cannibalistic behavior reported by ethnographers (including the ceremonial consumption of ashes and ground up bones of dead relatives’’) and the constraints of the archaeological record, which registers only the physical traces of a behavior, it seems clear that dietary cannibalism, or the use of humans by humans as food, is the only variety of prehistoric cannibalism that stands a fair chance of being cor- rectly diagnosed. Detailed similarities in the treatment of food animals and human remains, specifically in butch- ering techniques, marrow fracturing, cooking, and patterns of postprocess- ing discard, provide the essential evidence on which to base a hypothesis of cannibali~m.~

In our 1986 papers4j5 we mentioned regional mortuary practices but their importance was not emphasized, as it should have been. At that time, differences between known Stone Age mortuary practices in Europe (essentially primary inhumation), funerary rites involving dissection and bone cleaning known among late prehistoric societies of North America, and the evidence interpreted as putative cannibalism (clusters of deliberately broken bones) seemed strong and intuitive to us. A later paper by Pick- ering7 has drawn attention to the need

ARTICLES Evolutionaty Anthropology 95

of considering secondary burial practices which may include deliberate bone breakage. (See below.)

By themselves, cranial bones do not usually provide unambiguous evidence of cannibalism because skinning of the skull and removal of brain and facial muscles can be related to practices of trophy keeping or of secondary burial. This ambiguity affects postcranial bones too, but is more se- vere with regard to skulls because cranial parts have limited nutritional value and tend to be associated with ritual behavior. In addition, there is evidence that during the Paleolithic, human crania and mandibles were given special treatment; this evidence consists of shaped, engraved, and perforated elements (e.g., the Isturitz cranial fragments, the perforated adult premolar from Saint-Germain-la- Rivikre, and the series of five perforated teeth from Bedeilhac).l2J3 The ideological context of these activities remains unclear, although they clearly involve a ceremonial aspect. In the absence of written sources, interpretations of ritualized behavior are fraught with difficulties and generally remain conjectural.

Analogy between treatment of animal and human remains has been a central criterion for interpretations of cannibalism since the second half of last century and was used by Euro- pean workers such as Weidenreich, Vallois, and de L ~ m l e y . ~ , ' ~ Until recently, however, analogies in the treatment of human and animal remains remained at the level of vague gener- alizations simply noting the occurrence of cutmarks, breakage for marrow extraction, or unceremonial disposal of refuse. Detailed analyses of bone modifications and butchery patterns are relatively recent advances in archaeology. The first systematic comparative analysis of human and animal remains was our 19864,5 study of the FontbrCgoua cannibalism for which we used the approach outlined above, based on intrasite contextual data and multiple, independent lines of evidence (Box).

Depositional Context of Human Remains

Some European Paleolithic remains occur in graves that are either

Identifying Prehistoric Cannibalism In 1986, based on our experience with occurrences of human remains in

Paleolithic and Neolithic Europe, we outlined a series of conditions needed for a rigorous implementation of those lines of evidence. We argued that a convincing identification of prehistoric cannibalism requires5:

7) The existence of an undisturbed archaeological context or its reconstruction through spatial analysis aided by refitting. This information is needed for an unambiguous reconstruction of the mode of discard of human remains.

2) Precise excavation methods and records based on the use of three spatial coordinates for all visible objects, as well as systematic recovery of the smallest debris through fine-mesh water screening. This information is needed to define the context of deposition and the causes of bone fragmentation.

3) The presence of human postcranial bones, which are needed to study butchery patterns.

4) Detailed analysis of cutmarks and bone breakage, which is needed to provide conclusive evidence that both modifications were caused by human action.

5) Detailed comparisons between human and animal remains representing food refuse, proving similarities of butchery patterns.

6) A final requirement must be added, that is, information about local burial practices. This information is needed to test the plausibility of a secondary burial hypothesis as opposed to that of cannibalism.

intact or that can be interpreted, on the basis of disarticulated or missing bones, as postdepositionally disturbed. Deliberate burials are most

Most often, Paleolithic remains in Europe occur as isolated bones in cultural sediments also containing artifacts and animal bones. In France,

often single, although a few cases are known of double, triple, and even multiple burial. Examples of each are the Grotte des Enfants burial of an old woman and a young man, the triple burial at Dolni VZstonice, and the collective grave reported at PYedmo- sti, 15.16

80% of the Upper Paleolithic occurrences of human remains (53 of 66 finds in major cultural levels) are scattered bones of one or more individuals. The other thirteen sites contained only burials. Because of the lack of precise information about MNI at some sites, counts are not based on

t BURIED (MNI = 88) 2k NON-BURIED (htN1= 62)

% 70 T

i I \ \ i

CRA MAX MAN CRV CLV SCAP HUM RAD ULN SAC PEL PEM TIB FIB Fuure 1. Percentage of element representation in Paleolithic burial and non-burial contexts. Each value is obtained by dividing the observed minimum number of a skeletal element by its expected number (expected MNE = number of elements in the skeleton X MNI). The non-burial sample is based on data from refs. 15 and 19 and individual site reports. Data on Paleolithic burials from ref. 62.


individuals, and do not include occurrences of isolated teeth. Although Gar- gettI7 disputed the occurrence of burials at the Neandertal sites of La Chapelle-aux-Saints, La Ferrassie, Re- gourdou, and Roc de Marsal, his arguments are hardly convincing.l* If the traditional diagnosis is accepted, counts of Neandertal burial sites in France versus finds of isolated bones show very low proportions (4 versus 23). Interestingly, the proportions of burial sites versus those with isolated bones in the Mesolithic are inverse (1 3 versus 4).

Some isolated Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic finds can be interpreted either as residuals from badly preserved primary burials or from shallow graves or abandoned bodies that have been disturbed. But such interpretations are not always possible. For example, they cannot be applied to the shaped and modified cranial bones from Isturitz and Le Hacardl3 or the 33 Ofnet crania which were placed in two pits, then covered with ochre and ornaments.15 These are clear instances of special treatment of skulls. Traditionally, behavioral interpretations have been extended to materials for which contextual data are missing or too poor to provide solid foundations for inference. Thus, the abundance of skull bones at some sites is seen as a related phenomenon. Un- doubtedly, the representation of body parts from nonburial contexts in French cave sites shows a preponder- ance of cranial bones as compared to a sample of Paleolithic primary burials (Fig. 1). It has been proposed that these are the result of secondary burial involving special treatment of skulls. In fact, the inadequate excavation records and the lack of detailed contextual information and faunal o r taphonomic analyses from these sites, most of which were excavated before 1960, confound efforts at interpretation. In other words, we cannot rigor- ously evaluate and refute alternative explanations such as purposeful selection by the prehistoric people, differ- ential preservation, postexcavation discard, or neglect of postcranial fragments by excavators who did not recognize them as being human. Only bones that have been shaped and modified or placed in naturally im-

Krapina Several possible indicators of cannibalism-cutmarks, bone breakage, and

burning-have been reported at this site. But identification of the cutmarks has been made difficult by the use of preservatives; interpretation of patterns of bone modification is hindered by the lack of comparative faunal material, especially postcranial samples; and information on the mode of bone disposal has been lost. Nonetheless, in a new analysis of the postcranial bones, Russe1I25 tried to overcome these difficulties and to prove that the secondary burial practice of bone cleaning is responsible for the marks on the bone.

Russell used an approach similar to that employed at FontbrBgoua. She compared data on the frequencies and location of marks on the Krapina Nean- dertal bones with similar data from Juntunen, a North American Indian ossuary dated to 1320+75 A.D. where bones were cleaned for secondary burial. She also compared the Krapina material with the data on butchered reindeer bones from the Mousterian site of Combe Grenal, published by B i n f ~ r d . ~ ~ She argued that the Krapina bones are similar to those at Juntunen with regard to the frequency and location of cutrnarks and that the bones at both these sitesdifferfrom Combe Grenal, where she found that the marks were fewer and differently placed.

Russell suggested that bones cleaned for secondary burial bear significantly more cutmarks than do bones from bodies that were butchered for meat. Intui- tively, it seems logical that a butcher removing meat would try to avoid slashing the underlying bone, thus dulling the edge of the stone tool. If, instead, the goal were to remove all traces of tissue from the bone, as was done in secondary burial practices, the likelihood of leaving cutmarks would increase. Hence, Rus- sell concluded, the high frequency of marks at Krapina must be the result of bone cleaning, not cannibalism.

In fact: (7) Frequencies of cutmarks as high as, or even higher than, those observed

at Juntunen are found in several faunal assemblages for which a hypothesis of secondary burial is clearly abs~rd.40~~’

(2) The Combe Grenal sample has been distorted by excavation and analytic methods. The specimens studied do not include limb shafts, but only articular ends. Yet the incidence of cutrnarks on limb shafts can be very high. Moreover, limb shafts are present in the human assemblages at Krapina and Juntunen, to which Combe Grenal is compared.40

(3) The differences noted in cutmark locations and frequencies are artifacts of limited sampling. Cutmarks that were said to occur only on human bones and that were related to secondary burial practices are present on faunal remains. For instance, defleshing marks are found in the same anatomical locations on human humeri from Krapina and Fontbregoua and on humeri of sheep, wild boars and ibexes from Fontbregoua and Les Eglises, a Magdalenian site in the Pyrenees (Fig. 2). Repetitive, ladder-rung series of short marks, which Russell said must be associated with efforts to clean dried tissue from human bones25 are also present on animal bones, which would hardly have been cleaned for secondary burial (Fig. 2 and Box). I conclude that it is not possible to infer the wider purpose of cutmarks solely from their morphology, location, or frequency, without consideration of the variability in Stone Age butchery activities.

argued that hominid bones were not broken for marrow, but that bone breakage was postdepositional and unintentional. How- ever, her bone breakage data are equally flawed and inadequate to prove her thesis.40 Indeed, the available data are insufficient to resolve the question of cannibalism versus secondary burial at Krapina.

In a separate paper

ARTICLES Evolutionary Anthropology 97

1

2 3

Cutmarks on (1) human hip bones from Krapina; and (2,3) sheep hip bones from Fontbregoua. Marks are in comparable anatomical locations.

A

C D

B

Cutmarks on neck and shafts of human femora from Krapino (A) and Fontbregoua (6). and animal femora from Fontbregoua: domestic sheep (C) and wild boar (D). From refs. 5.25.46.

probable and well-documented contexts constitute valid proof of special treatment of skulls. The wider behavioral implications of such objects remain ambiguous.

Cutmarks Cutmarks have been reported on

isolated cranial and mandibular bones from fifteen French Upper Pa- leolithic sites (Bruniquel, Gourdan, Is- turitz, La Crouzade, La Madeleine, La Tannerie, Lachaud, Le Placard, La Marche, Le Morin, Lussac-Hermitage, Les Forges, Les Roches, Les Rois, and Saint Marcel), and at least one Meso- lithic site (Gramat). Cutmarks have also been found on bones from some Early and Middle Neolithic sites in southern and eastern France (two cranial fragments of an adult from Cha- teauneuf-les-Martigues, a juvenile mandible from Unang, a scapula from the Fraischarnp rockshelter and several cranial and postcranial bones from the Gardon Cave15,19j20; J . Courtin and M. Paccard, personal communication; and several individual site reports). Some of these have been verified by scanning electron mi- croscope (SEM). These include cuts on the Lachaud 3, Isturitz 7B, Les Roches, Gramat and Unang mandibles, the Chateauneuf frontal and the Fraischamp scapula (Villa and Ship- man, unpublished data).

Cutmarks have also been reported on Neandertal and pre-Neandertal remains, including the Marillac occipi- tal, two mandibles and one humerus fragment from Combe Grenal,2' the Engis I1 and Neandertal crania, various cranial and postcranial remains from Krapina and the Fontechevade frontal. Detailed examination and SEM studies of the Engis 1122 and Fon- tkchevade (Villa and Shipman, unpublished data) marks have failed to verify them as ancient cutmarks. Other specimens remain to be studied.23 However, cutmark verification alone is unlikely to bring us any closer to understanding the purpose behind such actions.

SECONDARY BURIAL The two alternative hypotheses of

secondary burial and cannibalism have been debated since the second half of the nineteenth century. At that


time human bones were found at several Upper Paleolithic caves in France (Bruniquel, Gourdan, Placard, Mas d’Azil) in situations that seemed to im- ply cannibalism. French prehistorians Edouard Piette24 and Emile Cartail- hac argued that the bones were not food remains but the traces of funerary rites that involved bone cleaning and bundling bones before disposing of them. Piette and Cartailhac based their explanation on implicit ethnographic analogies with “primitive” societies, the same approach followed by those who preferred the cannibalism hypothesis. Recently, several investi- gators, in particular Le M ~ r t l * ~ ~ ~ and Russell,25 have again proposed the secondary burial hypothesis as an alternative to that of cannibalism.

If we set aside controversial cases such as Krapina, is there unequivocal empirical support for secondary burial practices in the Paleolithic and the Neolithic of Europe? Three kinds of evidence have been reported. One kind, the rearrangement of bones from decayed and disarticulated bodies laid out in collective burial cham- bers to allow reuse of burial space, has been well documented in collective burials from the fourth millen- nium B.C. onward, but is practically unknown in Paleolithic and Early Neolithic times. Other evidence includes the separate disposal of one or just a few isolated bones apparently removed from primary burials or ex- posed bodies, and single, isolated hollows containing the disarticulated but carefully arranged bones of one or more incomplete skeletons. The well- excavated burial pits from the Middle Neolithic site of Saint-Paul-Trois-Cha- teaux (SE France) are a good example of practices of the second kind. Three pits contained multiple or single primary inhumations; three others each contained two or three isolated bones. At the site of Gournier, from the same age and region, there is also evidence of removal of a few bones from a decomposed body in a re- opened grave containing several buri-

The possibility that similar practices existed in the Paleolithic is suggested by the missing cranium from the Neandertal burial pit at Ke- bara (Israel). Several lines of evidence indicate that the Kebara grave had

been left open and the body allowed to decompose in situ until the cranium was removed without displacing the other bones in any way.18*27

The third kind of case corresponds to what is normally understood for secondary burial, that is, practices involving the gathering of skeletal remains from one or more bodies in various stages of decomposition and their reburial in clusters or bundles. Such clusters would thus contain the bones of one or more individuals.

Very few occurrences of this kind have been reported thus far in the European Stone Age and only two appear as unambiguous, undisturbed cases. Both occurrences are dated to post-Paleolithic times. These cases are a bone bundle found in an isolated small hollow at the Mesolithic site of Petit Marais (Somme, Northern France) dated to about 6000 B.C.,28 and a similar occurrence at the site of Moulin Villard (Card, SE France), that is dated to the fourth or third millen- nium B.C.29 Both clusters contain the skull and several postcranial bones OE an incomplete skeleton; there is no evidence of cutmarks or deliberate breakage. The secondary burial of Moulin Villard is the only example of its kind at this site although 27 burials have been reported.

In the Paleolithic there are no clear instances of secondary burials, with the possible exception of the Abri Pataud finds. In the Protomag- dalenian layer of this rock shelter30 (dated to about 20,000 B.C.) a com- plete cranium and mandible of a young female were found positioned between three stones; at a distance of 4 m from the skull, 117 postcranial bones of a young adult and newborn child, including four teeth apparently belonging to the skull, were localized in a cluster, ca. 80 by 50 cm. in size. The Abri Pataud finds (which include other disarticulated bones and partly articulated limb segments also found in clusters) may actually be the best candidate for secondary burial practices ever discovered in recent, con- trolled excavations of Paleolithic sites. Unfortunately, little taphonomic information has been published; this material should be restudied. Interest- ingly, there are no cutmarks on the Abri Pataud human remains3I and no

evidence of deliberate bone breakage. As mentioned earlier, the abun-

dance of cranial bones at some sites such as St. Germain-la-Riviere, where 11 individuals were represented only by cranial remains,32 is often ex- plained as a result of secondary burial. Unfortunately, these and similar kinds of data from other sites are now essentially uninterpretable.

Taken together, the available data suggest the existence of secondary burial practices in the Neolithic, the Mesolithic and possibly the Paleo- lithic of Europe. Primary inhumation and secondary burial practices involving the gathering and reburial of disarticulated human remains were practiced at the same time. There is, however, no evidence that at any time, postmortem skeletalization was accomplished by dissection and bone cleaning, no evidence of purposeful and systematic bone breakage, and no evidence that secondary interment was the preferred mode of burial. I conclude that, within the context of European prehistory, there is no reason to assume that a secondary burial hypothesis involving extensive dissection of bodies and bone breakage has a higher probability than a hypothesis of cannibalism (contra Bahn8l9 and Pickering7).

EVIDENCE OF PREHISTORIC CANNIBALISM IN EUROPE

At many sites there are simply too few bones or too few diagnostic crite- ria to build a valid argument. For example, Neandertal remains have been found broken and scattered over the floor in various levels of the Hortus cave. However, there are no cutmarks on the bones. There are also too few broken long bones to prove deliberate marrow fracturing. There are, in fact, only six diaphysis fragments of which only three have the oblique fracture angle and curved outline of “green bone” breakage.I2 Moreover, refitting indicates postdepositional displace- ment; teeth and jaw fragments belonging to the same Neandertal individuals (Hortus 2,3,5,9) were ver- tically scattered about 50 cm across four or five layers.33 Thus, we have no unequivocal information about the original depositional context and mode of discard of these bones.


I

A

7

C D E F G

57 R4 \ H

L12

398 . L13

91 L12 1 :;

5 Figure 2. Cutmarks on human and animal limb shafts from prehistoric European sites. A: Human humeri from Krapina (composite of nine specimens); 6: Anterior (composite of four specimens) and posterior (composite of eight specimens) views of Capm ibex humeri from Les Egiises: C-G: drawings of individual animal humerifrom Fontbregoua Cave; C.D,E: wild boar, F and G: domestic sheep; H: Human humeri from Fontbregoua (composite drawings, catalogue number of individual specimens shown near cut location). From refs. 25,46, Delpech and Villa, unpublished data.

Until recently, few facts were avail- hyenas, not humans, were responsible able to support or refute the hypothe- for the accumulation and modifica- sis that cannibalism accounts for the tion of the bone assemblage including, Guattari Cave (Monte Circeo) Nean- most likely, the Neandertal cra- dertal ~ k u l l , ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ New facts show that n i ~ m . ~ ~ , ~ ~ * ~ ~

Fon tbregoua The evidence from this site repre-

sents the only well-documented case of cannibalism in European prehistory. In contrast to other suggested cases, involving Neandertals or Homo erectus, the Fontbregoua cannibals were modern Homo sapiens. The Fontbrkgoua case rests on precise excavation records and a variety of observations that all converge to the same conclusion.

The site, under current excavation by Jean Courtin of the French CNRS, is a large, well-lit cave, at 400 m eleva- tion and 30 m above a fresh-water spring. During the fifth and fourth millennia B.C. (Early and Middle Neo- lithic, or Cardial, PrCchassken and ChassCen phases of the regional cultural chronology) the site was used as a temporary residential camp by early farming groups that kept herds of sheep and goat inside the cave, as indicated by layers of burnt ovicaprine dung. They also hunted a variety of wild animals (which in the early phase provided almost half of their meat supply), had domestic cereals, pottery, tools made of nonlocal flint, and personal ornaments.43

Most of the butchery was done in the cave and bones were discarded in small piles, in shallow hollows or against a stone. To date, 18 bone clusters have been excavated, each representing a distinct episode of butchery and discard, and containing the remains of one domestic sheep, several wild animals (either wild boars, or animals of several different species), or several humans.

Three clusters of human bones, representing the remains of 8 to 14 individuals (depending on estimation methods) were found in different parts of the cave but in the same stra- tigraphic unit. This shows that cannibalism was temporally limited, at about 3930k130 B.C. (uncalibrated I4C date on bone collagen, Ly 3748). Animal bone clusters are found throughout the sequence; spatial analysis suggests that many more piles of discarded animal bones existed but only few have survived intact. Other remaining habitation features include fireplaces, storage pits lined with lime, and clusters of burned animal bones from cleaning of fireplaces.


Spatial analysis based on refitting links and taphonomic studies of the human and animal bones from the individual features indicate that each feature represents a single event, and cutmarks and bone-breakage were man-made and were not due to carni- vore gnawing, trampling, sediment pressure, or excavation tools. In addition, carcasses of both humans and animals were butchered using the same procedures. Both human and animal bones have high frequencies of cut marks (e.g., 41.7% and 40.8% of the human and animal humeri respec- tively carry butchery marks). The location of marks were very similar in bones of both groups; of 33 cutmark varieties found on the human bones, 23 (i-e., 70%) can be matched with similar marks on homologous animal bones (Figs. 2, 3, and Box). The evidence also shows that all of the long bones of both groups were broken to extract marrow. Since each cluster contains many small unidentifiable splinters and bone chips, recovered through fine-mesh water screening, it seems that marrow fracturing was done nearby, perhaps on a skin, and fragments were then discarded together in a tight pile. Finally, patterns of discard in bones of both groups are identical. There is no evidence that meat-on-bone was cooked but the treatment of human and animal remains does not differ in this respect. In all clusters, humans and animals are represented by selected body parts; other parts are missing or are present in lower than expected frequencies (Figs. 4 and 5).

During this time period, the most common mode of burial in SE France was primary inhumation, as indicated by individual graves from several cave and open air sites that have been excavated in recent years (Pendimoun, Unang, Barret-de-Lioure). In one case (Baume Bourbon), 15 bodies had been deposited on the surface of an interior cave chamber.44~45 At FontbrCgoua the use of ordinary butchery practices and the unceremonious mode of discard in a domestic setting contrast strongly with contemporary funerary customs and suggest that, like the wild and domestic animals, humans had been processed for meat and marrow. We conclude that cannibalism is the only

1 2

4

3

Figure 3. Fontbregoua Cave. Long saglltal skinning marks on: 1, 2: human skulls; 3: a female deer skull; and A: a marten skull.

satisfactory explanation for the Font- brkgoua e~idence .~

We do not yet understand the fac- tors that triggered the cannibalistic behavior at Fontbrkgoua. Starvation cannibalism seems unlikely for a small group of people that had a variety of wild and domestic food re- sources, lived in a country of low relief with mild winters and little snowfall, were not trapped inside the cave, and appear to be on the move since the cave was used only as a temporary camp. However, it is difficult to refute this hypothesis of starvation. Inter- group aggression might possibly be the reason, but this would be difficult to prove. The idea that aggressive cannibalism existed in prehistoric Europe will be supported when we can dem- onstrate that cannibalism happened at other sites to0.34

Is Secondary Burial a Valid Alternative?

Recently a challenge to our interpretation has been proposed by Pick- ering7 and supported by Bahn.81~ According to Pickering, all the features in the Fontbrkgoua data that seem to support cannibalism can be replicated by the mortuary rituals of the Australians. He summarizes ethnographic reports describing those burial practices, which included dissection of bodies, bone cleaning, bone breaking, mixing the bones of several individuals in the same log coffin, and disposing of the bones of the same individuals in separate bundles. (Inter- estingly, the same ethnographers often misinterpreted these practices as indicating cannibalism.)

Pickering says that “there are nei-


H1 H3

100 50 0 0 50 100 I I I I I I I I I I I I l l l l l l l l t l

MN137

Car IMc I H Ph k-i MNI = 6

Figure4 Fontbregoua Cave. Percentage of element representation (cf. Fig. 1) in features H1 and H3, containing human bones. This and Figure 5 show that no two features contain the same body parts, yet all show selection of anatomical segments. This pattern is characteristic of secondary burial, according to Pickering, but the features with animal bones (Fig. 5) suggest that it may be due to food sharing or patterns of separate processing. Data for Figures 4 and 5 from ref. 4.

ther theoretical reasons nor definite material evidence to suppose that prehistoric societies were cannibalistic” and that ethnographers’ observations of cannibalism were rooted in miscon- ceptions. He concludes “the (Font- brkgoua) remains are more likely to be the product of non-cannibal activities associated with mortuary rites.”

These assertions provide no mean- ingful alternative to our interpretation. First, all of our physical and contextual evidence with regard to cutmark frequencies and locations, bone breakage, patterns of selective representation of body parts (Figs. 4 and 5), and mode of bone discard (i.e., as clusters in shallow hollows or near a large stone) points to identical treatment of human and animal remains. If, as Pickering and Bahn suggest, the human bones at Fontbrkgoua indicate secondary burial, we may conclude

that the Fontbrkgoua people hunted, herded, and butchered, but did not eat, food animals and that they gave secondary burial to boars, deer, sheep, roe deer, badgers and marten.

Bahn8 notes that the Fontbrkgoua human remains are not mixed with animal bones but were treated sepa- rately; according to him, this weakens our case considerably. He failed, in fact, to notice that some animal species were also treated ~epa ra t e ly? ,~ ,~~ Domestic sheep and wild boars are the species most commonly butchered by the cave inhabitants and their bones are never mixed with others but found in distinct clusters. To date, excavation at the site has uncovered eight distinct clusters of sheep bones and four distinct clusters of wild boar bones.

Can it be argued that there are reasons to favor butchery for animal re-

mains but secondary burial for human remains? There is no evidence that it should be so. Pickering’s basic conten- tion is that butchery and secondary burial result in identical patterns of traces on bones. However, he uses only ethnographic reports to interpret the Fontbrkgoua data, and provides no physical data on assemblages of human bones from Australia and no data at all on animal bones, thus failing to prove his assertion of similarity. He gives no consideration to similarities in location and mode of discard of human and animal remains, a highly diagnostic criterion and a crucial aspect of the Fontbrkgoua evidence.

Pickering’s challenge is based on the assumption that the hypothesis of sec-

There is, however, no evidence that at any time, postmortem s kele t a k a t ion was accomplished by dissection and bone cleaning, no evidence of purposeful and systematic bone breakage, and no evidence that secondary interment was the preferred mode of burial.

ondary burial is more likely than the hypothesis of cannibalism. This is what allows him and Bahn to choose between competing explanations for, according to them, traces of secondary burial that cannot be distin- guished from those of cannibalism. However, within the context of Euro- pean prehistory a hypothesis of secondary burial does not have a higher prior probability: i.e., it is not consistent with data on burial practices in prehistoric or historic Europe and is not more plausible.

From a methodological standpoint, the kind of ethnographic data on


Fron t l e g

which Pickering bases his analysis is far from compelling. How is it possible to discount ethnographic accounts of cannibalism but to use ethnographic reports of mortuary practices? Why should ethnographers’ observations be accurate with regard to secondary burial but inaccurate with regard to cannibalism? Finally, the idea that cannibalism was an institutionalized practice in prehistoric societies was never and need not be a part of our argument.

In sum, the secondary burial hypothesis can be applied to Font- brkgoua only if it will be shown that butchery and disposal patterns of human and animal remains in Australia are indeed identical, even though the purposes of these activities were very different. That is, the only real challenge to our interpretation will be an analysis indicating that: (1) human bones from Australian burials and bones of food animals have similar patterns of breakage for marrow extraction; (2) the locations and frequencies of cutmarks on human and animal bones are comparable; (3) the mode of discard of human and animal bones is such that it can leave identical traces at a habitation site; (4) the secondary burial hypothesis has a higher probability than the cannibalism hy- pot hesis.

In the absence of such analysis, cannibalism remains the simplest and most satisfactory explanation because it adequately accounts for all the evidence from Fontbrkgoua and fits into current knowledge of primary burial as the mortuary custom in the region at the time. In its current formulation, the secondary burial hypothesis relies on external, incomplete, and unsatis- factory data, does not take into account intrasite contextual data, is not consistent with local funerary behavior and leads to unnecessarily compli- cated conclusions.

OTHER CASES OF CANNIBALISM It is not easy to provide a candid as-

sessment of the few other putative cases of cannibalism that have been reported in Europe from areas or pe- riods that fall outside my direct experience, especially if supplementary data, needed for independent evalu- ation, are available only in difficult-to-

1 9 10

% O 50 100

s u s MNIz3 1

100 0 50 100 % I I I I 8

Head 8 Upper neck

F r o n t 8 R e a r fee t

s u s MNIz4

Figure 5. Fontbregoua Cave. Percentage of element representation in three intact features (nos. 1,9. 10) containing animal bones. Feature 9 contained limb extremities of four wild boars (radii and ulnae are represented b y unfused distal epiphyses, indicated by dashed lines): feature 10 contained some of the head, trunk and front leg bones of two wild boars; feature 1 shows a more even representation of various anatomical segments of three wild boars. These features confirm that the pattern of selective discard is not due to postdepositional destruction of bone (which is in excellent state of preservation in all features) and is due to human action.

access publications. My list of possible cases of cannibalism includes some Early Postglacial sites in Southern Sweden and Denmark (e.g., Dyrhol- men47), Bronze Age and Iron Age sites in Cze~hoslovakia,~8 and evidence of child sacrifice and possible ritual cannibalism from a Late Minoan house at Knossos, The last occurrence, dating from about 1500-1450 B.C., not long before the destruction of the Minoan culture, has been challenged by Branigan.so

An increasing number of Anasazi sites in the American Southwest are being interpreted as providing evidence of cannibalism. Expanding on the work of Paul Nickens and, especially, Christy Turner,s* physical an- thropologist Tim White has now published a very detailed, insightful and magnificently illustrated analysis of the human remains from Mancos Canyon, southwestern Colorado.s2 The assemblage, comprising 2,106 cranial and postcranial bone fragments belonging to a minimum number of 29 individuals was recovered from the floor and trash fill of several abandoned rooms of a pueblo dated to the 12th century A.D. White’s interpretation of cannibalism is supported by a series of lucid, compelling descrip- tions and observations on cut marks,

percussion marks, breakage, burning and “pot” polish (polish attributed to circulation in a ceramic vessel with rough interior surfaces during boil- ing), supplemented by quantitative data in graphs and tables. To this he adds a systematic survey of 18 other sites with possible evidence of cannibalism, mostly dating between 900 and 1300 A.D. He compares these sites with the remains from primary burials, and with butchery patterns found in a faunal assemblage of mule deer and bighorn sheep from an Anasazi site of similar age.

While White’s book was in press, a provocative paper by Peter Bullock53 challenged the evidence for Anasazi cannibalism proposed by Turner, Nickens, Malville and by White’s in- progress research. He argued that vio- lent beating death with subsequent corpse mutilation (American Indian warfare practices documented in the historic literature) could well account for the cutmarks, rib fragmentation, skull damage, and burnt bone of the “cannibalized” assemblages. Al- though White was not aware of this paper, his careful analysis provides the readerwithenough information to refute Bullock‘s descriptive accounts. Thus, the very high degree of fragmentation and rarity of articular ends of


the Mancos femora and tibias (documented in excellent photographs) cannot be reconciled with a hypothesis of breakage as a result of beating deaths. The numerous percussion pits, percussion striae, and burning scars clearly indicate that the percussor contacted bones in a defleshed state, and that breakage did not precede burning, as required in Bullocks hypothesis, but followed it. Additional evidence for cannibalism that is not discussed in the Mancos book might include (1) Occurrences of cutmarks across fracture lines in conjoining sets, again proving that “battering” breakage did not precede but followed defleshing; (2) graphic data on anatomical location and morphology of cutmarks on Anasazi fauna (similar to those on the human remains) to show differences with slashing wound marks. The demographic analysis of the Mancos assemblage shows a very high incidence of children, including five which are six years or younger; this does not suggest death on a bat- tlefield, although a village massacre could be hypothesized.

Bahn insists on the idea of secondary burial as an alternative interpretation. Al- though I do not believe that Anasazi mortuary practices had much similarity to the Australian ones, or that Bahn’s suggestion represents a valid alternative, it is necessary to present proofs of such belief. Most, but not all, Anasazi burials were primary inhumations. With the exception of the “cannibalized assemblages which regional archaeologists sometimes call “mass secondary burials,” the term “secondary burial” is used to indicate both a postdepositionally disturbed primary burial and an intact occurrence of reburied bones.55 Excavation reports of the Dolores Archaeological Project show that some occurrences may be bundle burials (e.g., Burial 1956) while others are described as scattered remains from relocation of primary interments (e.g.. Burial 405’). In addition, a large number of occurrences consist of isolated bones in non-burial situations (e.g., in hearths, on living surfaces, in wall niches55). Bahn’s challenge should be responded to by deeper investigations into the fine-grain contexts, bone modifica-

In a review of White’s

tion, and behaviorally significant at- tributes of Anasazi burials and non- burial occurrences.

CONCLUSIONS Cannibalism is a phenomenon at

the edge of detectability. Other behaviors, such as incest, torture, and infan-

~

If, as Pickering and Bahn suggest, the human bones at Fontbregoua indicate secondary burial, we may conclude that the Fontbregoua people hunted, herded, and butchered, but did not eat, food animals and that they gave secondary burial to boars, deer, sheep, roe deer, badgers and marten.

ticide, which are also shrouded in se- crecy or shame or ideological disap- proval, have also created similar problems for ethnographers and his- torians, being difficult to observe and document in a rigorous, nonanedoctal way. In the animal world, and specifically among mammals, the practice of eating conspecifics has been documented, but is not common. It is sometimes associated with scaveng- ing or conflict among stranger^.^^ Ag- gressive cannibalism occurs among nonhuman ~rimates.5~ Thus, there is no reason to exclude cannibalism from the range of human behaviors and we should keep an open mind about the possible occurrence of either survival or aggressive cannibalism in prehistoric times. Extreme skepticism in this respect is as ideo- logically charged as the view that cannibalism was normal behavior among Neandertals and other archaic hominids .

Paradoxically, belief in Stone Age

cannibalism endured not because there was hard evidence in its favor but because there was little solid evidence either to refute or prove it. A robust analytical framework with specific conditions and procedures for the identification of at least one variety of prehistoric cannibalism is now available. Expanding on the principle of faunal comparisons and the use of multiple, independent lines of evidence, the method requires detailed, systematic analyses of configurations of materials at the site, of bone modification and butchery patterns in human and animal remains, and comparative data on mortuary practices for the site or the region under consideration. Although the faunal analogy argument was already used in the last century and “good archeology has always involved careful contextual analyses,”60 this approach is new inso- far as it is an application, to a particular research problem, of advances in field methods and postexcavation analytical skills (from contextual analysis based on refitting and three- dimensional provenience data to studies of bone modification) that have taken place in Old World archaeology since the end of the 1960s.6* This approach is proving to be productive. It is important to recognize that “since ethnographic observations of cannibalism in human social groups are no longer possible, archaeology has be- come the only possible source of new systematic data on this behavior.”34

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Research on the Fontbregoua hu-

man and animal bones has been supported by grants from the CNRS, the Leakey Foundation, the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies. I am grateful to Jean Courtin, director of the Font- brkgoua excavation, for inviting me to study this material and feel very obliged to him, Eric Mahieu, Daniel Helmer, and Pat Shipman for their collaboration in this project. John Fleagle and reviewers have generously provided very helpful comments and criticisms.

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Cannibalism in prehistoric Europe

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