Briana Pobiner, lead author of the study and a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, said: “I was shocked and surprised. He remembered that when he met others at the National Museums of Kenya in Nairobi where he discovered, he said “Come here. Come and see this. Am I crazy?”
In order to prove that the scars were caused by cannibalism, Pobiner said, “You have to know who is eating and who is being eaten, and in this case we know nothing.” Cannibalism requires both consumers and consumers to be of the same species.
About 1.5 million years ago, approximately three hominin species existed in the area where these fossils were found: A man is standing, A helpful person and Paranthropus boisei. Pobiner said that to identify the species in question, scientists will need more bones than just one.
Cannibalism is not uncommon among animals. More than 1,300 species of animals eat themselves, including some primates. The earliest evidence of meat-eating among hominins dates back to 800,000 years ago, and was found at the Atapuerca archaeological site in northern Spain.
Approaching the practice they have arrived at A wise manthe most difficult and unpleasant questions they raise.
“This behavior connects us to our animal nature and reminds us that we are just one of the millions of species that have existed throughout evolution,” said Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, a postdoctoral researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleontology and Social Evolution who has nothing. not participating in this research, but who participated in a recent conference on cannibalism in history called “Feast or Hunger.”
“For less fun,” he continued in an email, “cannibals A wise man has a deep philosophical meaning. It raises questions about love and hate, family and enemies, the taste of war and the killing of the dead, and a feast against hunger.”
The swollen bone Pobiner examined was found by British archaeologist Mary Leakey, but at the time the marks were not recognized as signs of cannibalism. Nor have they been identified as such by researchers who have studied the left tibia in recent years.
Pobiner believes the investigators who examined the bones missed the marks because they weren’t looking for signs of murder. In recent years, it has become more common to reexamine fossils that have already been found, he said.
The bone was one of 199 hominin, all between 1.5 and 2 million years old, that Pobiner examined in July 2017, but only one of them found the cut. The markings were of the same color as the rest of the bone, indicating they were made before the bone was formed, he said.
Although Pobiner identified the symptoms with a simple hand-held magnifying glass, they were later analyzed using more sophisticated technology. They took a longitudinal image of the bone using the type of clay that dentists use to take pictures of teeth and look for bite marks when placing crowns.
They gave the photo to one of the study’s co-authors, Michael Pante, of Colorado State University, without telling him anything about the data it was taken from. Over the course of months, Pante used this image to create 3D computer models of the marks, which were between 1 and 5 millimeters in length. These samples were compared to a database of 898 individual tooth, canine and tread samples created through a controlled experiment.
Pante confirmed that 9 out of 11 were circumcised; the other two, tooth marks, were probably made by a lion-like animal.
“Unfortunately, identifying the type of tool or product from a cut mark is difficult and prone to error,” Pante said via email, “which is why we chose not to include it.” He said more research will be needed before the symptoms can be reliably linked to a specific type of device.
No stone tools were found with the bone, although Pobiner said tools have been found at various dig sites, including one 15 kilometers away.
Because scars and dental scars do not mix, the story of what happened is not clear. Was the hominin scavenge left over from the first lion kill, or was the hominin the first kill and lion scavenger?
“It seems strange that a lion as big as a lion would not scavenge the carcasses of elephants [hominin] which used to be deep muscles,” said Rodríguez-Hidalgo. “What would be left for cats to scavenge? Only bones, but big cats are not known for their ability to break bone, and the tibia seems to be missing. So, this doesn’t seem logical.”
The fact that only 199 of the bones examined by Pobiner had cut marks indicates to him that it is unlikely that hominins of this period ate carnivores regularly. The consumption of some hominins was increased due to the lack of other foods. The hominin diet 1.5 million years ago included antelopes, zebras, rhinos, hippos ― “anything you can find,” as Pobiner likes to say.
James Cole, senior lecturer in archeology at the University of Brighton in England, called the new research. “An interesting and surprising discovery,” which shows the need to return to the archives stored in museums.
“Some of the best discoveries have already been made, but they may still be unknown,” Cole said. “The evidence here shows that we cannot fully understand our ancestors and the difficult and fascinating lives they led.”
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