Human flesh on menu at Stone Age feasts

Stone age Europeans held sumptuous annual banquets which may have featured human as well as animal delicacies, according to the latest archaeological research.

Stone age Europeans held sumptuous annual banquets which may have featured human as well as animal delicacies, according to the latest archaeological research.

The discovery sheds important new light on life in prehistoric times. The excavations being carried out by a team of Cambridge University archaeologists in a cave in north-west Croatia have unearthed the bones and other food detritus discarded during hundreds of gargantuan feasts.

The investigations have so far revealed that 11,000 years ago these prehistoric gluttons were gorging themselves on wild boar, various types of venison, badger, hare, giant snails, marine mussels and, probably, small pieces of human flesh.

The evidence suggests that the feasts were almost certainly regular annual events. And data obtained by a detailed examination of young boar and deer teeth and the isotopic analysis of mussel shells are revealing that the banquets were held sometime around November - perhaps as a great ritual feast before winter set in.

So far, only 3 per cent of the food detritus from the banquets has been excavated and examined. Analysis shows that it came mainly from the carcasses of between 30 and 60 red deer, 20 to 50 roe deer, 22 to 40 wild boar and up to 60 smaller animals. The team - led by Cambridge archaeologist Doctor Preston Miracle - also found the shells of 2,000 edible snails, and 60 marine mussels brought from the Adriatic coast five miles away.

The food detritus found so far was produced by the consumption of 12 tonnes of meat. The likely total amount of food consumed in feasts over the centuries would have been almost 400 tonnes. Radio carbon dating evidence suggests that around 65 per cent of the bones were discarded between 9200BC and 8900BC - so the Stone Age revellers seem to have consumed almost a tonne of meat at an annual feast.

The quantity of food at each banquet suggests a large gathering, requiring between 50 and 100 adults to consume it over two or three days. It is almost certain that the feasts were subtribal or clan events.

The probable ritual nature of the banquets is hinted at by the presence of human bones - toes, vertebrae, ankles and skull and pelvis fragments - among the food debris. In the sample so far examined, less than one per cent of the bones were human - so, if human meat was being eaten, it was certainly not being devoured for calorific purposes. The likelihood is that small pieces of human flesh were being eaten for ritual reasons. It could be that they hoped to acquire the qualities of a captured enemy - or even to absorb the wisdom of a revered and recently deceased relative. The site of the feasts is a 3,000sq ft cave located in a narrow gorge at the foot of a cliff 15 miles west of the Croatian port of Rijika, and known to archaeologists as Pucicina (belly button) and to local people as Skura (dark).

Doctor Miracle believes the discoveries are important: "Through an analysis of the food debris, we are gaining new insights into the social and ritual lives of the Stone Age people who feasted in the cave," he said.