Roughly 850,000 years ago, someone looked at a toddler and saw dinner. That’s the conclusion researchers have drawn after analyzing a child’s neck bone found in the Gran Dolina cave system in northern Spain. The bone, belonging to a 2- to 5-year-old Homo antecessor, shows precise cut marks—signs of decapitation and defleshing. In other words, this poor kid got butchered and eaten.
“This case is particularly striking,” said Palmira Saladié, co-director of the excavation, in a statement, “not only because of the child’s age, but also due to the precision of the cut marks.” According to Saladié, the toddler was “processed like any other prey.” And in this cave, prey was often another human.
Ancient Human Relative Ate Toddlers, Scientists Confirm With Neck Bone
This latest discovery adds to a disturbing pattern. So far, about 30% of the human bones found at Gran Dolina show signs of cannibalism—slicing, smashing, and even bite marks. Not metaphorical ones. Actual human bite marks.
The 10 newly unearthed skeletons, including the toddler, belonged to Homo antecessor, a now-extinct species known only from this cave. These early humans have baffled scientists since their discovery in the ‘90s, partly because they show a strange mix of features: some modern, some very not. Their exact spot on our family tree is still debated, but one thing’s clear—they weren’t picky eaters.
“The cut marks on the bones do not appear in isolation,” Saladié told Live Science. “Human bite marks have been identified…this is the most reliable evidence that the bodies found at the site were indeed consumed.”
The bones were found in sediment dated between 850,000 and 780,000 years ago, making them the earliest known human remains in Europe and the earliest definitive evidence of human cannibalism anywhere. Other possible examples exist, like a 1.45-million-year-old specimen from Kenya, but this toddler’s fate is much harder to argue with.
Researchers believe cannibalism at Gran Dolina wasn’t just a survival strategy. It may have also helped these hominins assert control over territory or reduce rival groups. “The treatment of the dead was not exceptional, but repeated,” said Saladié.
Which means this wasn’t a one-time tragedy. It was a menu.
And while the toddler’s fate is deeply unsettling, it’s a reminder that the human story didn’t start with cave paintings or fire. It started with bone on stone, flesh on teeth, and a small neck in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
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