Talk:Gough's Cave
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[edit] Cannibalism
I know that it's "trendy" to mention or claim practices such as cannibalism in caves, but that is mostly fluff to get the tourists gibbering in fear. Claims of cannibalism are poorly supported in the archaeological record. How for example are you going to distinguish between the marks made by cannibalism and those made by ritual de-fleshing of the bones before interment?
The comments on cannibalism need to be removed, or at least heavily qualified.
A Karley (talk) 07:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Doing a little more checking ... http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/T/timeteam/archive/2001alv_2.html contains the following text (copied & pasted in case of C4 dropping the site) [START QUOTE] The Gough's cave bones date from some 8,000 years before those found at Alveston. But do they represent evidence of another case of cannibalism among our ancestors? Mark P Renzoni's PhD thesis for the University of Toronto, 'The Upper Late Paleolithic in Britain: Gough's Cave Cheddar' (available online at http://citd.scar.utoronto.ca/ANTD15/Mark/human.html), looks at all the different excavations that have taken place at Gough's Cave. This is how he summarises the evidence for cannibalism (references to his various sources have been removed for ease of reading):
'Both the human and animal remains recovered from Gough's display cut marks, providing evidence of human processing of both animal and human remains. Based on the recent material, an examination of the human material indicates that human corpses were dismembered at, or shortly after, death. This is indicated by the presence of cut marks in the area of the masseter and temporalis attachments, as well as by the separation of the ribs from the vertebrae. The presence of cut marks on human remains at Gough's and the disposal of the human material has also led to the suggestion of ancient cannibalism at this cave site, although the acceptance of this statement can not be made until a detailed study of the cut marks and their distribution is completed. It is however noted that, "If cannibalism is implied, its practice could not have been a dietary necessity because plenty of food seems to have been available at the site throughout the period of occupation." The evidence from the research on the human material indicates that the late glacial occupants of Gough's Cave dismembered their dead, although the meaning behind this type of behavior is a more difficult question to answer.'[END QUOTE] This gels with what I've (informally) heard from other archaeological resources, so pending comment from elsewhere I'll make the change (once I've finished archiving my photos from the trip, including uploading some to Wikimedia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by A Karley (talk • contribs) 07:25, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
