A child’s vertebra discovered in Spain has voluntary cutting marks, revealing an act of cannibalism practiced by Homo Antecessor. This behavior, far from isolated, seems to have been a recurring food strategy among our distant ancestors.
IPHES-CERCA
Archaeologists from Sierra de Atapuerca, in northern Spain, have uncovered a discovery as precious as it is disturbing: a cervical vertebra belonging to a child aged 2 to 4, wearing net brands of cutting.
According to information published by the Atepurca Foundation, this bone fragment, dated 850,000 years, and found in the Gran Dolina cave constitutes direct proof of cannibalism practiced by Homo Antecessor, an ancient human species that have inhabited the region.
Voluntary decapitation
According to researchers from Iphles-Carca, the bone shows precise incisions at key anatomical points, which suggests voluntary decapitation. “It is not only the youth of the victim that strikes, but the surgical precision of the brands,” explains Palmira Saladié, specialist in taphomy and co -responsible for excavations.
“This behavior was not exceptional”
The vertebra is part of a set of ten human remains exhumed during the 2025 summer campaign.
All belong to Homo Antecessor and have clear traces of cutting, unloading and voluntary fractures – similar to those observed on animal remains consumed. These clues strengthen the idea that cannibalism was a practice integrated into the lifestyle of these hominids.
“This behavior was not exceptional,” insists Saladié on the “Lasexta” site. “It was a subsistence strategy, probably motivated by ecological constraints and perhaps also by a logic of territorial domination”.
Up to 30 % of human fossils found in Gran Dolina show signs of post-mortem treatment linked to meat consumption. Certain identified traces go beyond the cuts: brands of human bites on the bones confirm that the bodies have indeed been eaten.
An ancestor common to Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens
All the bones uncovered belong to Homo Antecessor, a species discovered in 1997 in Atapuerca. If its exact role in the tree of evolution remains debated, some researchers think that it could be an ancestor common to Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.
The new fossil dating, between 780,000 and 850,000 years, make it the oldest proofs of human presence on the European continent, and the oldest testimony of cannibalism.
Atapuerca, a window open to the human past
The archaeological campaign of 2025, qualified as “very positive” by the field teams, mobilized more than 300 researchers from all over Europe.
The recent discoveries, combined with those of previous years, confirm the importance of Atapuerca as a reference site to understand the beginnings of humanity in Europe.
And archaeologists are convinced: the Castilian basement has not finished delivering its secrets. As Palmira Saladié sums it up: “Each campaign forces us to review our hypotheses on the way in which these populations lived, survived … and treated their dead.”
Certain aspects of this article have been developed with the help of artificial intelligence.