Hundreds of pieces of bone dating from 5700 years ago carry evidence of being processed and eaten by other humans, bolstering the idea that cannibalism was common in the Neolithic period
By Luke Taylor
7 August 2025
Cut marks on a foot bone from El Mirador cave in Spain
IPHES-CERCA
Butchered human remains found in a cave in northern Spain suggest that Neolithic people may have eaten their enemies after killing them in combat.
Francesc Marginedas at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) in Tarragona, Spain, and his colleagues studied 650 fragments of human remains belonging to 11 people, which were found in El Mirador cave in the Atapuerca mountains and dated back 5700 years.
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All of the bones had signs that these individuals had been eaten by fellow humans. Some had chop marks, indicating that the people’s skin was cut off with stone tools, while others were translucent with slightly rounded edges, suggesting they had been boiled. Some of the longer bones had been broken open with stones, probably to extract and eat the marrow, while smaller ones like metatarsals and ribs featured human teeth marks.
The study adds to evidence that cannibalism was more common than previously thought throughout human history.
El Mirador is at least the fifth site with strong evidence of cannibalism in Spain in the Neolithic period, when people switched from foraging to farming, says Marginedas. “We are really starting to see that this kind of behaviour was more common than what we expected.”