Prehistoric Humans May Have Dug Up Bodies to Make Tools

A study of bones from a Spanish cave suggests humans might have fashioned tools from the remains of recently deceased community members or relatives

Margaret Osborne
Daily Correspondent
September 27, 2023



Human bone inside Cueva de los Marmoles, the cave in Spain where the study took place. J.C. Vera Rodríguez, CC-BY 4.0

Ancient humans in Spain may have dug up their deceased relatives to make tools from their bones—and possibly to eat the marrow within, new research suggests.

A team of scientists led by researchers from Switzerland’s University of Bern examined remains belonging to at least 12 people buried between 5000 and 2000 B.C.E., found in a cave on the Iberian Peninsula. Altogether, the pieces amounted to 411 bone fragments and 10 loose teeth.

They found several bones had been modified after the individuals’ death, including a carved “skull cup” and a tibia that had been fashioned into some type of scraping tool. The marks left from scratching and cutting the bones were distinctively a sign of human action, per the researchers—animal gnawing was only found on 3 percent of the analyzed fragments. The team published their results last week in the journal PLOS ONE.

“What I think was quite intriguing is the amount of manipulated bones, as well as the extended use of the cave for funerary purposes,” study author Marco Milella, a physical anthropologist at the University of Bern, tells CNN’s Jack Guy. “Altogether these discoveries return a picture where the cave was culturally a focal point for generations.”

More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/prehistoric-humans-may-have-dug-up-bodies-to-make-tools-180982960/