A Repast for Neanderthal

By Frederic Golden

After the discovery of the first Neanderthal bones in the mid-19th century, these beetle-browed, chinless cave dwellers who lived from 125,000 to 35,000 years ago were dismissed as primitive apelike brutes. But contemporary science saw them in a better light. With brains as large as ours, they apparently cared for their sick, made simple jewelry and buried their dead--perhaps in quasi-religious ceremonials. Now, however, we may have to revert to the more savage image. According to a report in last week's Science, at least some Neanderthals butchered, ate and disposed of their kin as if they were so much slaughtered game.

The evidence comes from a cave in the Ardeche region of southeastern France, overlooking the Rhone River, where archaeologist Alban Defleur of Marseilles' Universite de la Mediterranee discovered 78 Neanderthal bones about 100,000 years old. They were from at least six individuals--two adults, two teenagers and two six- or seven-year-olds. Like the deer bones with which they were intermingled, most bore unmistakable signs of deliberate butchery.

"It looked like a well-preserved crime scene," says paleontologist Tim White of the University of California, Berkeley, who examined the bones with scanning electron microscopy. Slashes across foot, ankle and elbow joints indicate tendons and muscles were deliberately cut. Skulls were smashed to remove the brains, bones were broken for the marrow, and in at least one instance a tongue was cut out. The markings, says White, were what you'd expect "if you were slicing up and down to cut the meat away from a turkey bone."

The scientists can't say whether Neanderthals engaged in cannibalism only during famines or whether it was a regular part of their life. Either way, the finding deals a fatal blow to the image of a kinder, gentler caveman.

--By Frederic Golden