The cannibals of Cheddar Gorge
Warriors carved emblems on bones of victims
IT is a beauty spot frequented by countless visitors every year.
But Cheddar Gorge in Somerset was once a battleground where tribes butchered and ate their enemies.
After their grisly triumphs, they even carved markings on victims’ bones, scientists have revealed. Cannibals at Britain’s most famous Palaeolithic site decapitated their dead, filleted the flesh and made drinking cups from skulls 14,700 years ago.
The 2.5in zigzag carvings could be a savage tribal emblem left by early humans who killed their victims and ate them. Another theory is that they were carved as part of a funeral rite in tribute to the dead, who died naturally but were eaten by companions when food was scarce.
Professor Chris Stringer, of London’s Natural History Museum, said: ‘It may have been during warfare that they were killed outside the cave and their remains taken there, or this was crisis cannibalism where people had to eat their dead during a bad winter. Or they could have been eaten as a tribute, in the same way that some cultures believe you can take on someone’s courage by consuming their remains.’
It was first believed that all the cuts in human bones found in Gough’s Cave in 1987 were left by a cannibal filleting muscle from the skeleton with flint.
But a fresh study of marks on one arm bone, led by Dr Silvia Bello at the Natural History Museum, concludes that they are decorative. The cuts were compared to 322 filleting marks on other human and animal remains, as well as engravings.
The exact meaning of the zigzags died with the cavemen – but experts base their theories on similar repetitive geometric patterns seen in ancient art.
Professor Stringer said: ‘For some people these are symbols of tribes, which work as marks such as tattoos.’ The findings, published in the journal PLOS One, are the first evidence of engraved human bones from the Palaeolithic period. The cuts were the wrong length for filleting marks. Dr Bello, Calleva Researcher at the Natural History Museum, said: ‘Although in previous analyses we have been able to suggest that cannibalism at Gough’s Cave was practised as a symbolic ritual, this study provides the strongest evidence for this yet.’