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.