A reconstruction of the Homo antecessor H3, now known as the "Girl of Gran Dolina." [Image credit: Tom Björklund]
Posted on 04/25/2021 8:08:28 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
About 800,000 years ago in what is now Spain, cannibals devoured an early human child who became known as "The Boy of Gran Dolina." But new analysis of these ancient remains has revealed a surprising twist: the child was a girl.
The child was a Homo antecessor, an early hominin species that lived in Europe between 1.2 million and 800,000 years ago. Discovered in 1994 in the Gran Dolina cave in northern Spain's Atapuerca Mountains, the species is known primarily from fragments of bones and teeth, which hampered researchers' efforts to determine the sex of H. antecessor individuals.
Recently, scientists... examined teeth from two Gran Dolina individuals: "H1" and "H3". H1, whose remains defined the H. antecessor species, was about 13 years old at the time of death and was long presumed to be male. The second individual, H3 — The Boy of Gran Dolina — died at the age of 11 years old and was also thought to be male...
The girl would have been between 9 and 11 years old when she was killed and eaten, according to the study. And she wasn't the only victim; the remains from 22 H. antecessor individuals in Gran Dolina displayed signs of being cannibalized, with bones showing cuts, fractures where they had been cracked open to expose the marrow, and even tooth marks, Live Science previously reported.
One possible explanation for this ancient cannibalism is that humans were easier to catch and more nutritious than other animals, researchers wrote in 2019 in the Journal of Human Evolution. Compared with other types of prey, "a lot of food could be obtained from humans at low cost," CENIEH researcher Jesús Rodríguez, lead author of the 2019 study, said...
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
A reconstruction of the Homo antecessor H3, now known as the "Girl of Gran Dolina." [Image credit: Tom Björklund]
Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Gran Dolina went walking...
How do we know they weren’t eaten by animals?
It probably not a very pleasant story jost how our ancestors survived and those alive today came to be.
Just heruck to run into great-great-great-great-grandaddy Epstein.
Wonder if they’ll ever catch the guy who did it. Any fingerprints on the scene ?
Bobbie Flay’s new secret ingredient is ...
Even worse, some had to resort to [shudder] veganism.
Nephilim. 5-7 thousand antideluvian
“It probably not a very pleasant story jost how our ancestors survived.”
That explains haggis.
I’m wondering how they established cause of death.
It's right in the excerpt.
That was interesting, but I liked the giraffe relocation video better.
Dr FraudCI said she mostly died of Covid.
Mistaken for a beaver.
Antediluvian.
Butchering marks on the bones made from tools.
Eaten by early adrenochrome consuming cabal members.
And when she passes each one she passes says 'yum'...
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