People living on the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic period may have eaten their neighbors in a gloomy and terrible act of social violence, reveal new evidence.
At least 11 individuals – including children and adolescents – seem to have been with skin, discouraged, dearticulated, broken, prepared and eaten by other people, according to bone markings dating from 5 709–5,573 years, discovered in the El Mirador Cave in Sierra de Atapark, Spain.
Even more intriguing, the evidence shows that all this cannibalism occurred at about the same time, at one, possibly isolated incident. This suggests that the people living there at the time were not common cannibals, but may have been involved in the practice for extension reasons, such as a local conflict between a clan.
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“In this study, we are dealing with a new case of cannibalism on Atapuerca sites,” says paleocologist Palmyra Saladi of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IFI) in Spain.
“Cannibalism is one of the most complicated behaviors that must be interpreted because of the inherent difficulty in understanding the act of people who consume other people. In many cases, we lack all the necessary evidence to associate it with a specific behavioral context. Finally, public biases tend to interpret it as an act.”
A large number of bones showed signs of breaking and the flesh was eaten. (IPPS-CERCA)
The ancient history of humanity seems to have been obsessed with the smells of cannibalism in the millennia, with practice only in many cases only on the Iberian Peninsula.
There are many reasons why our ancestors may have practiced cannibalism ranging from support to the funeral rite of transmation – including the deceased in the bodies of the living to maintain them symbolically.
Some of the severed brands cataloged by researchers. (Saladié et al.. Sci. Rep.2025)
Saladi and her colleagues discovered their strange incident with cannibalism, documenting 650 separate fragments of human bones from the El Mirador Cave, which shows signs of what is called after death – deliberate change.
These signs include “suppression of pot”, smoothing the ends of the bones associated with throwing into the cooking pot; discoloration associated with cremation; and cut traces of 132 of the bones, in accordance with “disposal, enclosure, dearticulation, dispensation and distortion,” the researchers write.
Some bones also showed a kind of change known as peeling. How peeling occurs is discussed among scientists, but a possible mechanism is a bite – traces of teeth. Some of the remains in their assembly, the researchers say, show quite clear signs that they were bored with human teeth.
These bones indicate damage that may be the result of chewing. (Saladié et al.. Sci. Rep.2025)
It’s even more intriguing. Radio -carbon dating suggested that all swallowed people died at about the same time and were broken and eaten in one event, perhaps covering a few days. Analysis of a bone strontium isotope ratio has shown that all consumed The people were local.
“It was neither a funeral tradition nor a response to exceptional hunger,” says the evolutionary anthropologist of IFI and quaternary archaeologist Fransk Marjdas. “The evidence indicates a violent episode, given how quickly everything happened – probably the result of a conflict between neighboring agricultural communities.”
We will never understand for sure what led to the horrific holiday of human flesh in El Mirador about 5700 years ago, but the evidence is pointing to an extreme demonstration for the purposes of social control, the researchers say.
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“The conflict and development of strategies for managing and preventing it are part of human nature,” says archaeosooologist Antonio Rodriguez-Hydallo of the iPhs. “Ethnographic and archaeological records show that even less stratified and small societies can occur for violent episodes in which enemies can be consumed as a form of extreme removal.”
The increasing set of evidence is increasingly showing broadly, intergroup violence on the Iberian Peninsula during the Neolithic-probably due to territorial disputes, competition for resources and pressure of the population, as more and more people are migrating in the region.
Dangerous bones suggest that cannibalism was part of this landscape of violence, an extreme instrument in a larger kit used to completely conquer someone’s enemies.
It also contributes to some nuance to our understanding of cannibalism throughout human history.
“The recurrence of these practices at different times in recent prehistoria makes El Mirador a key site for understanding prehistoric human cannibalism and its connection with death, as well as possible ritual or cultural interpretations of the human body in the worldview of these communities,” says Saladie.
The study has been published in Scientific reportsS