What kind of cannibalism? Methodological challenges from the Paleolithic and the Mesolithic

We aim to address some methodological issues concerning how cannibalism can be recognized in an archaeological context. Over the past few decades, some scholars have proposed comparing modifications on human remains with those on faunal remains as the key to verifying the presence of cannibalism. This methodology has been widely accepted as the most valid and efficient, and recent studies and reviews of prehistoric cannibalism have been conducted using these criteria. Nevertheless, while the comparison between traces on human and faunal materials offers the highest degree of certainty for interpreting a human bone assemblage as the remains of a cannibalistic episode, both the historical and ethnographic records show that cannibalistic practices may vary and do not always leave traces that can be clearly recognized from an archaeological perspective. In a preliminary study, we researched all the available evidence regarding cannibalism among Paleolithic and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers where the aforementioned methodological criteria could be applied. Interestingly, throughout the extensive timeline analyzed, cannibalism is almost always associated with faunal remains, suggesting that the hypothesis of so-called 'nutritional/survival cannibalism' should be ruled out. From this perspective, then, other forms of cannibalism could have been involved, and, consequently, the data collected using this method may offer us just a glimpse of the real extent of this practice in the deep past.