Bull. nat. Hist. Mus. bond. (Geol.) 58(supp): 59-81 



Issued 26 June 2003 



Cannibalism in Britain: Taphonomy of the 

 Creswellian (Pleistocene) faunal and human 

 remains from Gough's Cave (Somerset, 

 England) 



P.ANDREWS 



The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK 



Y. FERNANDEZ-JALVO 



Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, 28006 Madrid, Spain 



SYNOPSIS. Human induced damage is the main taphonomic modification observed on the fossil bone assemblage of Gough's 

 cave. Fossils from this site are very fragmentary, showing abundant cut-marks, percussion marks and peeling. Some specimens, 

 however, are complete (ribs, vertebrae, carpal-tarsal bones and phalanges), but these elements are characterised by low marrow 

 content where breakage to open the bone is not needed. Human remains recovered from this site show similar butchering patterns 

 to other animals suggesting skinning, dismembering, defleshing and marrow extraction activities. Excavations during the 1986- 

 1987 seasons showed that the human remains appear at the site randomly mixed with animal bones, with no specific distribution 

 or arrangement of human bones. The evidence from this distribution indicates equal treatment of human and animal remains, and 

 the analysis of cut-marks and other modifications suggests that both humans and animals were accumulated as the discarded food 

 remains of the human population. This is interpreted as nutritional cannibalism. One exception to this is seen in the slight 

 differences in skull treatment compared with other sites, suggesting a possible element of ritual cannibalism (cf Fontbregoua, the 

 French Neolithic site, ca 4000 BC). 



INTRODUCTION 



Human remains from Gough's cave (Cheddar) have been recovered 

 during several excavation seasons. They were found together with 

 abundant remains of other vertebrate animals and stone tools from 

 Oxygen Isotope Stage 2 deposits, and most come from the Late 

 Pleistocene interstadial, 11,500-13,000 radiocarbon years ago 

 (Stringer 2000). 



The early excavations during the late 1920's and early 1950's 

 took place over a wide area of the cave, and although abundant 

 fossil remains were recovered, no record was kept of the bone 

 distributions. A joint excavation undertaken by the University of 

 Lancaster and The Natural History Museum (UL-NHM) was much 

 more restricted in extent, with most of the bones coming from 

 about one cubic metre of fine gravel and silt between a large rock 

 and the north wall of the cave during 1986-92 (Stringer 2000). 

 These were excavated, however, with much greater precision, and 

 records of the fossils and stratigraphy were kept in meticulous 

 detail, so that more information is available from this small area 

 than for the whole of the previous, much more extensive, excava- 

 tions. In addition, fossils recovered by this recent excavation have 

 been found to refit with remains recovered by the earlier, indicat- 

 ing that it is the same fossil bone assemblage. The UL-NHM 

 seasons have been essential in interpreting the site formation and 

 the type of cannibalism practised by Homo sapiens about 12,000 

 years ago. 



Cannibalism among humans has been a taboo topic and is still 

 today a controversial aspect of human behaviour. By definition, a 

 cannibal is a person or animal that eats any type of tissue of another 

 individual of its own kind. Permissive tolerance of human cannibal- 

 ism has traditionally occurred when referred to 'primitive' societies, 

 but critical reviews such as Arens, (1979) have been sceptical of 



cannibalism claims based on written references or oral tradition. 

 Taphonomic studies of bone remains of the victims have been the 

 only way to validate some claims for cannibalism (Villa et ai, 1986a, 

 1 986b; White, 1 992; Turner and Turner, 1 999; Fernandez-Jalvo et ai. 

 1999;Degusta, 1999,Defleurefa/. 1999). The oldest case confirmed 

 as cannibalistic practice among humans was described at the early 

 Pleistocene site of Gran Dolina (TD6, Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain), 

 but a recent study has discovered cut-marks on a right zygomati- 

 comaxillary specimen from the Plio-Pleistocene site of Sterkfontein 

 (South Africa) that may suggest an earliest case of human damage on 

 human remains (Travis et al, in press). According to these authors, 

 cut-marks appear on areas of ligament and muscle insertions, sug- 

 gesting cuts were made on purpose to cut meat. Surprisingly this is 

 the only specimen showing butchering marks, absent on the remain- 

 ing 763 macro-mammalian fossil specimens, including the rest of 

 the hominid remains recovered from the site. 



Cut-marks are of great significance in coming to an understanding 

 of prehistoric human behaviour, but on their own they cannot be used 

 as direct evidence of cannibalism. Cut-marks may appear on human 

 skeletons as result of mortuary rituals, practices still current today, 

 where human carcasses are defleshed but meat or marrow is not 

 consumed. Cuts may be frequent on these skeletons, although canni- 

 balism is absent. Sometimes carcasses are defleshed and meat or 

 organs eaten as result of rituals in relation to beliefs or religion. The 

 identification of nutritional cannibalism, in contrast to ritual, is 

 based on a combination of indicators, the main criterion of which is 

 the comparison of human and animal remains from the same ar- 

 chaeological context. If a human population was living by hunting, 

 and it did not distinguish between animal and human prey, the 

 processing marks left on the bones of both human and animal should 

 be the same. Turner (1983) has given several criteria for recognising 

 nutritional cannibalism, but the most basic criteria by Villa et al. 

 ( 1986a, pg 43 1 ) are as follows: 



© The Natural History Museum. 2003 



