(ORDO NEWS) — Scientists from the British Natural History Museum (Natural History Museum), together with colleagues from the Francis Crick Institute (Francis Crick Institute), conducted an analysis of DNA extracted from the most ancient human bones that have ever been found in the British Isles.
The bones were discovered more than 30 years ago in local caves inhabited at the very beginning of the Stone Age.
In Gough’s Cave in Somerset (Somerset’s Cheddar Gorge), the oldest were the remains of a woman who lived here about 15,000 thousand years ago, in another – in Kendrick’s Cave in North Wales (North Wales) – they dug up male bones 13600 years old.
It turned out that these ancient people were very different genetically. Both were migrants, but belonged to completely different groups.
One – the woman’s tribesmen – were cannibals. Natives of the area, which is now in Belgium. Another group – those who left their bones in Kendrick’s cave, pulled up much later from the territory of present-day Italy.
The migrants of the “second wave” were not fond of cannibalism – they ate mainly seafood and river fish, they were not descendants of the bloodthirsty “early Belgians”.
Thus, the roots of modern Englishmen are double. We are dual ancestry, as they call themselves now. And one of the “roots”, as now there is no doubt, reaches out to the cannibals. What the researchers reported in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. It is cited by the Daily Mail.
It is interesting that British scientists themselves began to convict their ancestors of cannibalism – from the same Museum of Natural History.
With the assistance of colleagues from University College London (University College London). A few years ago, they examined human bones from the Gough cave under a microscope.
And they saw the marks of the teeth, the grooves from the tools that appear on the bones after the meat is scraped off them. Some were split open to extract the delicious marrow.
British cannibalism was hardly ritualistic. Most likely, by eating human meat, the ancestors did not mean anything mystical. They simply ate prey caught by chance. Suppose, in the camp of enemies.
Moreover, cannibals processed human skulls in a special way and used them either as bowls, or as plates, or as pots. They ate and drank from them, having no other kitchen utensils.
Jaws and eye sockets have been separated from the “pots” found in the cannibal cave. Only the upper vaults are left. The sharp edges are sawn off, the bone tissues are cleaned and polished.
Scientists have studied three skulls with obvious traces of machining. Two belonged to adults, one – to a child of three years.
A nightmare, but it is possible that this was exactly what the first kitchen utensils that people began to use were. Plates or bowls – from large skulls, cups – from small, children’s ones. Service … The British are still very inventive. Especially British scientists.
—
Online:
Contact us: [email protected]
Our Standards, Terms of Use: Standard Terms And Conditions.