Upper Palaeolithic ritualistic cannibalism at Gough's Cave (Somerset, UK): The human remains from head to toe
Abstract
A recurring theme of late Upper Palaeolithic Magdalenian human bone assemblages is the remarkable rarity of primary burials and the common occurrence of highly-fragmentary human remains mixed with occupation waste at many sites. One of the most extensive Magdalenian human bone assemblages comes from Gough's Cave, a sizeable limestone cave set in Cheddar Gorge (Somerset), UK. After its discovery in the 1880s, the site was developed as a show cave and largely emptied of sediment, at times with minimal archaeological supervision. Some of the last surviving remnants of sediment within the cave were excavated between 1986 and 1992. The excavations uncovered intensively-processed human bones intermingled with abundant butchered large mammal remains and a diverse range of flint, bone, antler, and ivory artefacts. New ultrafiltrated radiocarbon determinations demonstrate that the Upper Palaeolithic human remains were deposited over a very short period of time, possibly during a series of seasonal occupations, about 14,700 years BP (before present). The human remains have been the subject of several taphonomic studies, culminating in a detailed reanalysis of the cranial remains that showed they had been carefully modified to make skull-cups. Our present analysis of the postcrania has identified a far greater degree of human modification than recorded in earlier studies. We identify extensive evidence for defleshing, disarticulation, chewing, crushing of spongy bone, and the cracking o…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
The crushing of extremities at Navatu midden can potentially be interpreted as human chewing.
“This type of crushing of extremities can potentially be interpreted as human chewing (personal observation from DeGusta, 1999, Figs. 6 and 8) compared to similar modifications produced on experimental samples (Saladié et al., 2013) and observed at the Upper Palaeolithic site of Gough's Cave (Bello et al., 2015;Férnandez-Jalvo & Andrews, 2011).”
From The Archaeology of Cannibalism: a Review of the Taphonomic Traits Associated with Survival and Ritualistic Cannibalism (2025) · cites this paper as Bello et al., 2015
The majority of Magdalenian human assemblages consist of scattered and fragmented remains showing evidence of post-mortem manipulation interpreted as cannibalism.
“Although rare examples of Magdalenian burials are known, the majority of Magdalenian human assemblages consist of scattered and fragmented remains showing evidence of post-mortem manipulation interpreted as cannibalism (Bello et al., 2015;Sala & Conard, 2016;Saladié & Rodríguez-Hidalgo, 2017).”
From The Archaeology of Cannibalism: a Review of the Taphonomic Traits Associated with Survival and Ritualistic Cannibalism (2025) · cites this paper as Bello et al., 2015
The sites in Tables 3 and 4 exhibit anthropogenic modifications on more than 20% of the hominin remains, with some (e.g., Gough's Cave) at over 65% modification.
“the sites in Tables 3 and 4 exhibit anthropogenic modifications on more than 20% of the hominin remains5 (with some, such as Gough’s Cave, at over 65% modification9)”
From Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic (2017) · cites this paper as [9]
Investigations at Atapuerca and Gough's Cave have demonstrated how Palaeolithic cannibalism interpretations can be extended beyond the broad labels of 'nutritional' or 'ritual' based on the series of cannibalistic signatures.
“Investigations at Atapuerca613 and Gough’s Cave9 have demonstrated how Palaeolithic cannibalism interpretations can be extended beyond the broad labels of ‘nutritional’ or ‘ritual’ based on the series of cannibalistic signatures stated above.”
From Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic (2017) · cites this paper as [9]
For Homo sapiens, the motivations for cannibalism are wide-ranging, including nutritional cannibalism with ritual practices surrounding the special treatment of skulls and inter-group rivalries placed under stress during harsh climatic conditions.
“For Homo sapiens, the motivations for cannibalism are clearly wide-ranging, including nutritional cannibalism with ritual practices surrounding the special treatment of skulls9 and inter-group rivalries placed under stress during harsh climatic conditions5359.”
From Assessing the calorific significance of episodes of human cannibalism in the Palaeolithic (2017) · cites this paper as [9]
The taphonomic evidence closely matches the indicators documented in other prehistoric assemblages interpreted as cases of cannibalism.
“Taken together, this taphonomic evidence closely matches the indicators documented in other prehistoric assemblages interpreted as cases of cannibalism16,27,28,33,36,42,43,50–52.”
From Evidence of neolithic cannibalism among farming communities at El Mirador cave, Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain (2025) · cites this paper as [36]
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 108 · Cited by 108
- Authors
- Bello, S. M., Saladié, P., Cáceres, I., Rodríguez-Hidalgo, A., & Parfitt, S. A.
- Affiliations
- Natural History Museum (GB)
- Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (ES)
- Corresponding author
- Bello, Silvia M.
- Venue
- Journal of Human Evolution
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2015-05
- Volume
- 82
- Pages
- 170-189
- ISSN
- 0047-2484 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1982895001
- Cited by
- 108
- References
- 108
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 7 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 5 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 22 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 58.81
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Human Evolution (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Digital Commons - University of South Florida (University of South Florida) (submittedVersion)
- UCL Discovery (University College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (CGL2012-38434-C03-03)
- Leverhulme Trust (grant F/00 696/Q)
- Calleva Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Archaeological and Geological Studies
- Keywords
- Magdalenian, Upper Palaeolithic, postcranial skeleton, funerary practices, taphonomy, defleshing, marrow extraction, Cheddar Gorge
- MeSH terms
- Bayes Theorem, Cannibalism, Ceremonial Behavior, Culture, Fossils, Funeral Rites, United Kingdom, Humans, Paleontology, Skeleton, Skull, Tooth, History, Ancient
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
