Multiphase human cannibalism in Neolithic southern Iberia: Chronological and taphonomic evidence from Malalmuerzo, Carigüela, and Majolicas Caves
Cannibalism in Neolithic Iberia occurred at different times and reflected different human behaviours.
Cannibalism is one of the most complex behaviours to interpret in prehistory. Not because the act itself is necessarily difficult to identify archaeologically, but because very different circumstances can lead people to consume other humans. Cannibalism can be associated with extreme necessity, violence between groups, the treatment of enemies, funerary practices, or rituals involving members of one’s own community. Moreover, its archaeological expressions can be remarkably similar even when the emotions, motivations, and social circumstances behind them were divergent or even opposed. The archaeological traces may tell us that a human body was consumed, but the word “cannibalism” does not, by itself, tell us why.
This is precisely what makes the evidence from the caves of southern Iberia so interesting.
We studied human remains from three sites in Granada: Malalmuerzo, Majólicas and Carigüela. In all three, human bodies were intensively processed. They were dismembered, defleshed and skinned. Bones were broken, some were heated or boiled, and some preserve human tooth marks. These are not isolated or ambiguous traces. Together, they provide strong evidence that human bodies were processed and consumed.
But the similarities largely end there.
Radiocarbon dating showed that these remains do not represent a single regional episode. Cannibalism occurred at different moments during the Neolithic. Even more importantly, the way the bodies were treated was not the same.
At Malalmuerzo, processing was particularly intensive. The bones were heavily fragmented and some individuals show evidence of interpersonal violence. The pattern is compatible with a relatively short and violent episode, making exocannibalism—the consumption of people considered outsiders or enemies—a possibility that needs to be considered.
At Majólicas, the picture is different. The remains are less intensively fragmented, and some human bones were coloured red with cinnabar. At Carigüela, two human skulls were carefully modified into skull cups. These practices introduce a very different dimension and make ritualised forms of cannibalism, potentially involving members of the community, plausible.
We cannot simply attach a label to each case and claim to know exactly what these people intended. Archaeology rarely gives us direct access to intention. But we can reconstruct actions, compare patterns and identify meaningful differences.
And those differences are the important result.
Finding such diverse evidence within a relatively restricted geographical area shows why prehistoric cannibalism cannot be understood through a single explanation. The same basic act—the consumption of another human being—could belong to profoundly different social situations.
Cannibalism, in other words, is something people did. It is not, by itself, an explanation of their behaviour.
Ongoing thread. More from Palmira Saladié to follow.
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Malalmuerzo young person with violence injuries. © Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo
Diversityland: Hiding Racial Inequality in an American Suburb
Several important conversations are happening about suburbia today: the housing crisis, environmental sustainability, the concentration of affluence, and political polarization. My work enters a conversation that receives less attention, in part because we often picture suburbia as a white place: racial equity.
When Americans think about racial inequality, they often picture cities or perhaps remote rural communities. Our imaginations are behind reality: suburbs are home to the majority of Black, Latinx, Asian, white, immigrant, and poor Americans. Some suburbs remain deeply segregated, but many are becoming more diverse. The racial realities of twenty-first-century America are increasingly being lived out in suburbs, yet we spend far less time talking about racial inequality and equity there.
I am a white person who grew up in the suburbs. So, it is not surprising that when I took my first sociology class in college, I realized how deeply ignorant I was of the realities of racism in America. What made this surprising was that I did not grow up in a mostly white suburb, but rather in one of the most diverse communities in America. Much white ignorance operates through isolation. But I wasn’t isolated. This disconnect nagged at me through the rest of college and into graduate school. I wanted to understand why something felt off in my home community.
As a graduate student, I returned to Fort Bend to investigate. I discovered a local racial ideology that functions as a social contract that I call the diversity contract. The diversity contract helped explain my disconnect, as one of the terms of the contract is that it forbids discussions of racism and inequality. Living amid diversity had not taught me to see racial inequality. Instead, the community’s rules had helped make it invisible. My research traces how this happens and how the diversity contract can obscure even clear evidence of racial inequality. Fort Bend shows that a common equation – diversity equals equity – is false.
Zooming out, Fort Bend raises important questions about a longstanding hope among researchers and policymakers: that racial residential integration – people from different racial groups living in the same communities – will help reduce racial inequality.
I theorize that the diversity contract enables sustained integration – racial diversity that persists over time – because its rules help maintain peace and protect residents’ economic investments in the community. But this bargain requires something valuable enough to protect.
Affluent suburbs offer highly rated schools, valuable homes, amenities, and social status. If this argument is right, sustained integration should be concentrated in affluent suburbs. My national analysis finds exactly that. If we are waiting for integration alone to solve America’s racial problems, then we will be waiting a long time. Integration may be valuable, but proximity alone cannot dismantle inequality. That requires confronting how power, opportunity, and resources are distributed within diverse communities.
Ongoing thread. More from Kiara Wyndham to follow.
© Taylor Brown
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