A team of Catalan archaeologists has found, for the first time, evidence of cannibalism among Neanderthals in Catalonia. The finding suggests that the 52,000-year-old human remains discovered in the Cova de les Teixoneres, in Moià, belonged to individuals who were processed and consumed by their peers.
The key to the discovery, presented at a press conference, has been the finding of a clavicle with a characteristic cut from cannibal practice, frequent in other cases documented in prehistory. The team has thus confirmed a hypothesis that has been considered since the first human remains were found at the site in 2016.
In the excavation campaign, which began on June 1 and will end at the end of the month, scientists have also found two fragments from the back of the skull of a hitherto unidentified individual. The first analysis of these occipital remains show that it is a juvenile near adulthood.
It is, at least, the fourth individual found in the cave. The young man joins a list made up of a child between the ages of 6 and 7, another over 11 and a senile individual, although it is possible that some of the remains recovered belong to other individuals not yet identified.
The fragments found in the campaigns carried out up to now are, in general, very broken up, and have been found mixed with bones and teeth of animal origin. This makes it difficult to identify the human pieces, but at the same time supports the cannibal hypothesis, explains Jordi Rosell, co-director of the investigation, in conversation with La Vanguardia. Scientists associate fragmentation with the desire to extract the marrow from the bones and thus obtain nutrients.
“Cases of cannibalism among Neanderthals can be counted on the fingers of one hand, there are 8 or 10 confirmed with good data,” develops the researcher, a member of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES). Until today there was no documented case in Catalonia.
However, “the fact that there are four individuals [at the Moià site] means that it is common in groups from more than 52,000 years ago in Moianès,” concludes the expert, who hopes to find similar cases in nearby caves. in the future.
The next step is to analyze the huge number of samples found by the researchers since the excavations began in the Cova de les Teixoneres. “Perhaps we have a collection of more than 50,000 recovered remains, but it is very difficult to distinguish a small piece of a child’s tibia, from small pieces of tibiae or humerus of fawns and foals,” reflects Rosell. “We have some big bags of suspicious bone fragments and then a lot that we will never be able to confirm,” at least with the technology available now, he laments.
Scientists try to identify which remains are human using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS), a technique that analyzes the proteins in samples to classify them according to the taxonomic family to which they belong: if they correspond to humans, felines or cervids, for example. example.
Once the human remains have been identified, the team will try to find out if the four individuals found in the deposits were related. To do this, they collaborate with experts from the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, who extract and analyze DNA samples from the remains. The preliminary results, Rosell advances, show that “the DNA has been preserved and we have a very high-quality collagen”, although in some samples the compound has been destroyed by fire.
The objective that the project has set itself is to make a “comprehensive publication”, explains its co-director, that is, to share “all the remains together when we finish excavating the surface, with all the genetic data and all the morphologies”. The researcher hopes to start sharing the first data in June of next year.
