Archaeologists in Spain have uncovered harrowing evidence of a violent episode between Late Neolithic farming communities that ended in the slaughter and systematic consumption of at least eleven people, including children.
The discovery at El Mirador cave in the Sierra de Atapuerca, published in Scientific Reports, offers a rare and unflinching glimpse into intergroup conflict more than 5,700 years ago. Researchers say the victims were skinned, defleshed, disarticulated, fractured for marrow, cooked, and even bitten, in what appears to have been a swift, targeted act of cannibalism rather than ritual or famine response.
Evidence of Systematic Butchery
The team, led by Dr. Palmira Saladié of IPHES-CERCA and Universitat Rovira i Virgili, analyzed 650 human remains from two cave sectors. Many bore clear signs of human processing, including cut marks from skinning and dismemberment, percussion fractures to access marrow and brain, pot-polished surfaces from boiling, and tooth marks matching human dentition.
- At least 11 individuals: 3 children, 2 adolescents, 4 adults, plus 2 adults of unknown age
- Signs of cooking and pot-polishing on over 500 bones
- Human bite marks on 157 specimens
- Cut marks on skulls, ribs, limb bones, and hands and feet
- Radiocarbon dates between 5,709 and 5,573 years ago
Strontium isotope analysis showed all victims were local to the Atapuerca region, suggesting this was not an attack on outsiders. The rapid deposition of remains, along with the absence of ritual artifacts, points to a brief, intense episode of violence and consumption.
Not Ritual, Not Famine
Previous interpretations of prehistoric cannibalism have often revolved around ritual or starvation scenarios. In this case, the demographic profile of victims and paleoenvironmental evidence challenge both ideas. There is no sign of prolonged food scarcity in the archaeological record from this period, and the age distribution does not match famine-driven mortality patterns. Instead, the researchers see parallels with known Neolithic massacres such as Talheim in Germany or Els Trocs in Spain, where entire family groups appear to have been killed in single violent events.
“The evidence points to a violent episode, given how quickly it all took place, possibly the result of conflict between neighboring farming communities,” said Francesc Marginedas, co-author and IPHES-CERCA researcher.
Conflict as Social Control
Ethnographic and archaeological records suggest that cannibalism in small-scale societies can be a form of ultimate elimination, a way of erasing enemies both physically and symbolically. Co-author Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo notes that such acts often occur in the context of warfare, serving as both punishment and deterrent.
While no perimortem trauma was detected, the difficulty of identifying skeletal injuries after defleshing and bone breakage means lethal violence could have gone unrecorded in the remains. The researchers suggest the victims may have been a socially cohesive family group targeted for elimination, their bodies consumed as part of an act of social domination.
El Mirador’s Darker Timeline
This is not the first time El Mirador cave has yielded evidence of cannibalism. A Bronze Age episode, dating between 4,600 and 4,100 years ago, was documented in earlier excavations. The recurrence of such practices in different periods makes El Mirador a crucial site for understanding how cannibalism intersected with violence, death, and social identity in prehistoric Iberia.
Comparable cases in Europe, such as Fontbrégoua in France and Herxheim in Germany, have also been reinterpreted as products of intergroup violence rather than purely ritual acts. The El Mirador findings add Iberia to a growing map of Neolithic Europe marked by endemic conflict, resource competition, and occasional cannibalism.
Looking Ahead
The authors caution that motivations for such acts are complex and may never be fully known. However, the physical evidence from El Mirador is unequivocal: these people were killed, processed, and eaten. The study adds to a broader recognition that the Neolithic was not only a time of agricultural expansion and social development, but also of instability and violent confrontation.
Journal Reference:
Saladié, P., et al. (2025). Evidence of Neolithic cannibalism among farming communities at El Mirador cave, Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-10266-w
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