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Ice age Britons ate each other and made cups from skulls

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

Scientists have discovered the remains of three humans – including a child-of-three – that appear to have been killed for food, their bodies butchered and then eaten.

The bones showed precision cuts to extract the maximum amount of meat and the skulls had been carved into cups and bowls for drinking and eating.

The fragments – which are 14,700 years old- are thought to be the oldest examples in the world of skull cups and the first evidence of ritual killing in Britain.

What is particularly horrific is that at the time, humans knew how to bury their dead and so were not savages meaning the remains are most likely the result of premeditated cannibalism.

"At the time life was very tough," said Professor Chris Stringer, a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum, who helped excavate the skull cups.

"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."

At the time Britain was just emerging from the Ice Age and the cavemen – believed to be Cro Magnons originally from France – would have come to Britain from the Netherlands in summer, probably following animal herds migrating across land that is now the North Sea.

Just a few hundred strong, the hunter gatherers would have mainly lived off reindeer and horses but when times got tough it is believed they would have fought and eaten competing groups.

Prof Stringer said they were not savages and knew exactly what they were doing.

"What is more sinister is that these were quite sophisticated hunter gatherers – very like us," said Prof Stringer.

"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.

No one can be sure, exactly what happened but the three cadavers, found in Gough's Cave, Somerset, show signs of being chopped up for food.

The 41 pieces of bone, found in 1987 but only just fully analysed, were broken up to remove the marrow and cut marks shows that they were meticulously cleaned to remove all the soft tissues.

Most gruesomely the skulls were shown to have been smashed into cups, the hair scalped from the head, and the tongues and eyes gouged out.

The sharp edges were also cleaned up so that they could be used a drinking cup perhaps to consume "blood, wine or food" during the meal.

But once the feast had been finished the scientists believe that the cannibals discarded the bones and the skull cups and moved on.

While the tradition of using brain cases as drinking cups or containers has been documented in a variety of past, and even present, communities, archaeological evidence is extremely rare.

The use of skulls as cups has been known to a be feature of human history for centuries.

Some Buddhists and Hindus today still use them in rituals.

The three skull-cups identified among human bones from Gough’s Cave, Somerset, are the only physical evidence of skull-cups from our forebears in the UK.

Dr Silvia Bello, palaeontologist and lead author, described the production of the skull-cups.

"We suspected that these early humans were highly skilled at manipulating human bodies once they died, and our research reveals just what great anatomists they were.

"The cut-marks and dents show how the heads were scrupulously cleaned of any soft tissues shortly after death.

"The skulls were then modified by removing the bones of the face and the base of the skull. Finally, these cranial vaults were meticulously shaped into cups by retouching the broken edges possibly to make them more regular. All in all it was a very painstaking process given the tools available".

A replica of one of the specimens will go on display at the Museum in London on 1 March 2011 for three months.

The research is published in the journal Public Library of Science One.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archaeology/8326115/Ice-age-Britons-ate-each-other-and-made-cups-from-skulls.html

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A history of cannibalism....

The earliest evidence of cannibalism was discovered in Gran Dolina, Spain, where about 780,000 years ago, six individuals were butchered.

Another important site is in Moula-Guercy, France, where evidence of cannibalism taking place 100,000 years ago was found.

Cannibalism stretched far and wide and evidence of its practice was also found in South Africa, 80,000 years ago, and in America circa 1100AD.

In more recent times the Aztecs of the 15th century in Mexico engaged in cannibalism.

Cannibalism, in the form of human sacrifice, was a major aspect of Aztec culture. Some archaeologists claim it was because of psychological and sociological factors while others claim they saw it as a necessary part of their diet.

There have been a number of reports of cannibalism as recently as the 20th century, notably in wars in Congo and Liberia.

Cannibalism has also featured in books and films, and has been associated with some serial killers.

The book 'Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors', and a film of the same name, told the story of the Uruguayan Rugby team, their friends and family, who were involved in an aeroplane crashed in the Andes mountains on October 12, 1972.

Of the 45 people on the flight only 16 survived, and over a number of weeks they had to resort to cannibalism to do so.

Jeffrey Dahmer, also known as The Milwaukee Monster and Cannibal, murdered 17 men and boys, many of whom were of African or Asian descent, between 1978 and 1991. He tortured, dismembered, and then ate parts of his victims.

On November 28, 1994, he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate in prison.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/archaeology/8329521/A-history-of-cannibalism.html

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Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by the lioness:


Ice Age British Cannibal

Richard Neave, the forensic artist who reconstructed the facial features in this clay model, based his assessment on a careful measurement of the bone fragments and his long experience of how the soft tissues of the face are built around the bones of the skull.
The skull shares many modern features of human anatomy but also displays more archaic traits, such as very large molar teeth, which led some scientists to speculate the skull may belong to a hybrid between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals

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um....ok....this picture is posted in several threads.....I am sure by now we are all well aware of what/who it represents....why exactly has it found its way to this particular thread....what point are you trying to make by posting this picture in this particular thread...this thread is about cannibilism itself and some of the history thereof...not what cannibals looked/look like....SMH

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Originally posted by TruthAndRights:
this thread is about cannibilism itself and some of the history thereof...not what cannibals looked/look like....SMH

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Posts: 42940 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
Lioness is making quite a few subliminal points

* the time period is the Ice Age
* the mutation for Euro white skin is ~5000 BCE
* Ice Age Britons were black (not that Lioness believes that)
* the thread's title is biased against whites
* blacks were cannibals and skull cup drinkers (not that Lioness believes that)

Another example of Lioness "boomerang methodology" applied
when a people are "black" until negative things pop up on them.

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(not @ you).....

if the thread's title is biased against 'whites' then he/she should take that up with those who wrote the article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

lol...because I didn't author that title- it's the original title of the article itself at the link....

Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by the lioness:

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Originally posted by TruthAndRights:
this thread is about cannibilism itself and some of the history thereof...not what cannibals looked/look like....SMH

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o.k. little miss innocent

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YOU can go fold up ok....chat bout.....I am quite sure we are all well aware here that cannibilism has been practiced throughout history up to the present by all kinds of people....this thread is not meant to be about a Black/'White' issue as you are trying to make it out to be.... KMRT

.....it is about a BEHAVIOR/PRACTICE to which skin complexion of those indulging in said behavior/practice is not really relevant....except for/to those who make it so....

Posts: 3446 | From: U.S. by way of JA by way of Africa | Registered: Jan 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by TruthAndRights:

quote:

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Originally posted by alTakruri:
Lioness is making quite a few subliminal points

* the time period is the Ice Age
* the mutation for Euro white skin is ~5000 BCE
* Ice Age Britons were black (not that Lioness believes that)
* the thread's title is biased against whites
* blacks were cannibals and skull cup drinkers (not that Lioness believes that)

Another example of Lioness "boomerang methodology" applied
when a people are "black" until negative things pop up on them.

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(not @ you).....

if the thread's title is biased against 'whites' then he/she should take that up with those who wrote the article at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

lol...because I didn't author that title- it's the original title of the article itself at the link....

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Posts: 2403 | Registered: Feb 2010  |  IP: Logged | 

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Originally posted by Djehuti:
Though the first Eurasians who left Africa...

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Originally posted by Whatbox:
^You know what he's talking about with "Though the first Eurasians who left".

If you don't: it's proto Eurasians.

@ Djehuti: i had a feeling that was the case, just didn't remember nor try looking it up.

And skin shade is an adaptation to the Sun's harmful / helpful rays -- if there were a pigmentation adaptation to the heat it would probably be a lightening one to reflect more light like the brighter colors you where in the summer instead of getting toasted in black.

Under reflective (translucent) fur, Polar bears are black.

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Only problem is; light skin does not reflect light.
Skin is skin.
Light (Electromagnetic radiation) penetrates all human skin types.

yellow 508–526 THz 570–590 nm orange 484–508 THz 590–620 nm red 400–484 THz 620–750 nm
This is true even in pole regions of earth where sunlight (Electromagnetic radiation) is AMPLIFIED by up to 30db by snow covered terrains. Snow/Ice has properties to form a nature Laser, emitting natural amplification of radiation.

So, this being the case, dark skin in arctic regions is not as much overkill as an uninformed observer might believe. Neither is "light" skin more advantageous in these same Arctic regions.
Light Amplification by snow causes Photophobia reaction in Albinos.


That a person could come to this "lightened skin" theory only implies the analyst possesses an incomplete comprehension of environment.

The difference between Normal and Albino skin which absorbs "light" or the electromagnetic spectral components that comprise "light" is, a complex BioPolymer molecule labeled, Melanin.

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Originally posted by Djehuti:

Actually the Lyingass's point is null. The picture of the black person she posts represents a Middle Paleolithic settler of Europe. Though the first Eurasians who left Africa were black, it could be argued that by the time they reached Europe they were lighter in complexion, definitely the case for Ice Age Europe. So definitely Ice Age Europeans were not 'black'. As black skin is not conducive to a Cold Climate especially one during the Ice Age.

Reconstruction of a girl who actually lived in the Ice Age.

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