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Surprising Science

When Cannibalism Was Healthy

"Why did our ancestors eat each other? Simple: They were hungry." Discovery News reports on findings of cannibalism that refute explanatory theories like ritualism or starvation.

“Why did our ancestors eat each other? Simple: They were hungry.” Discovery News reports on findings of cannibalism that refute explanatory theories like ritualism or starvation: “The world’s first known human cannibals ate each other to satisfy their nutritional needs, concludes a new study of the remains of cannibal feasts consumed about one million years ago. The humans-as-food determination negates other possibilities, such as cannibalism for ritual’s sake, or cannibalism due to starvation. In this oldest known case of humans eating humans, other food was available to the diners, but human flesh was just part of their meat mix.”


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