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.

We did not begin this research expecting to find different forms of cannibalism. In fact, our initial hypothesis was much simpler.

We knew that several caves within a relatively restricted area of southern Iberia contained human remains showing evidence of processing and consumption. The most parsimonious explanation seemed to be that these assemblages were connected: perhaps they represented a regional phenomenon occurring during the same period and related to broadly similar circumstances.

Then the radiocarbon dates arrived.

They surprised us enormously.

Instead of clustering around a single moment, the dates showed that cannibalism had occurred at different times during the Neolithic. This immediately changed the question. We were no longer trying to understand one regional event. We had evidence for repeated episodes of cannibalism separated in time.

The taphonomic evidence made the story even more complicated.

Taphonomy is the study of everything that happens to a body from death until we recover and study its remains. In archaeology, marks on bones allow us to reconstruct part of that history. Cut marks can indicate the removal of flesh. Particular fractures can show that bones were broken while fresh. Tooth marks can identify chewing. Heat alteration can provide evidence of cooking or other exposure to fire. The anatomical location and distribution of these modifications help us reconstruct the sequence of actions performed on a corpse.

When we compared the three sites, we realised that we were not seeing the same pattern repeated.

The bodies had been processed for consumption, but they had not been treated in the same way. Malalmuerzo showed particularly intensive fragmentation together with evidence of violence. Majólicas combined consumption with a different treatment of the remains, including the use of red cinnabar. Carigüela preserved another extraordinary practice: the transformation of human crania into skull cups.

The results forced us to reverse our original reasoning. Instead of asking what single cause could explain cannibalism in this region, we had to ask why cannibalism appeared repeatedly and in different forms.

That question connects with a much larger problem in archaeology. Cannibalism has often been treated as though identifying it were also explaining it. But humans have consumed other humans for many different reasons. Ethnographic and historical examples show that cannibalism can involve enemies or outsiders, what we call exocannibalism, but it can also involve members of the same community, or endocannibalism, sometimes as part of funerary or ritual practices.

Our archaeological evidence cannot always tell us which category applies. What it can do is show that a single explanation is insufficient.

And our results have opened questions that we had not expected to ask. There appear to be particular moments during the European Neolithic when evidence for cannibalism occurs at more than one place. Why? Were communities responding to similar social tensions? Were particular ritual traditions circulating? Or are we seeing unrelated behaviours that happened to involve the same treatment of the human body?

We do not yet know. Sometimes the most interesting result of research is not the answer you expected to find, but the new question that the evidence forces you to ask.

Ongoing thread. More from Palmira Saladié to follow.