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SUMMARY:Prehistoric cannibalism: why such a fuss? - Silvia Bello (Natural 
 History Museum)
DTSTART:20180131T163000Z
DTEND:20180131T173000Z
UID:TALK98938@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Michael Rivera
DESCRIPTION:There are many ways in which societies interact with the remai
 ns of their dead. The dead are preserved (e.g. mummification\, embalming)\
 , reduced to their bare bones (e.g. excarnation\, defleshing)\, destroyed 
 beyond recognition (e.g. cremation)\, exhumed and displayed (e.g. ossuarie
 s) and hidden from sight yet memorialized (e.g. tomb stones). Among these 
 practices\, cannibalism remains an extremely contentious issue in archaeol
 ogy with many societies denying its occurrence. Cannibalism is usually ass
 ociated with a form of violence\, madness or\, in extreme cases\, survival
 . It is rarely accepted as the representation of a funerary ritual\, an od
 d way ‘for us’ to dispose of dead bodies. Gathering incontrovertible e
 vidence of human body consumption is difficult and modifications of human 
 remains are more often interpreted as defleshing or cleaning of partially 
 skeletonized bodies rather than cannibalistic practices. In this talk\, I 
 will present how human bones from a cannibalized archaeological context ca
 n be recognize and present different forms of cannibalism which were pract
 iced by the different species of hominins (_H. antecessor_\, _H. heidelber
 genisis_\, Neandertals and modern humans) who occupied Europe over the las
 t 1 million years. I will discuss some case studies\, show you that it has
  been practiced (and is still practiced) more often than one would expect 
 and eventually I will try to convince you of its ‘humane’ aspect.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Henry Wellcome Building\, Division of Biological A
 nthropology\, Fitzwilliam Street\, Cambridge\, CB2 3QG
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