MSGID: 1:317/3 649a65fb   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Humans' evolutionary relatives butchered one another 1.45 million years   
   ago    
    Cut marks on a fossil leg bone belonging to a relative of modern humans   
   were made by stone tools and could be evidence of cannibalism    
      
     Date:   
         June 26, 2023   
     Source:   
         Smithsonian   
     Summary:   
         Researchers have identified the oldest decisive evidence of humans'   
         close evolutionary relatives butchering and likely eating one   
         another.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
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   Researchers from the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History   
   have identified the oldest decisive evidence of humans' close evolutionary   
   relatives butchering and likely eating one another.   
      
   In a new study published today, June 26, in Scientific Reports, National   
   Museum of Natural History paleoanthropologist Briana Pobiner and her   
   co-authors describe nine cut marks on a 1.45 million-year-old left shin   
   bone from a relative of Homo sapiens found in northern Kenya. Analysis   
   of 3D models of the fossil's surface revealed that the cut marks were   
   dead ringers for the damage inflicted by stone tools. This is the oldest   
   instance of this behavior known with a high degree of confidence and   
   specificity.   
      
   "The information we have tells us that hominins were likely eating   
   other hominins at least 1.45 million years ago," Pobiner said. "There   
   are numerous other examples of species from the human evolutionary tree   
   consuming each other for nutrition, but this fossil suggests that our   
   species' relatives were eating each other to survive further into the   
   past than we recognized."  Pobiner first encountered the fossilized   
   tibia, or shin bone, in the collections of the National Museums of   
   Kenya's Nairobi National Museum while looking for clues about which   
   prehistoric predators might have been hunting and eating humans' ancient   
   relatives. With a handheld magnifying lens, Pobiner pored over the tibia   
   looking for bite marks from extinct beasts when she instead noticed what   
   immediately looked to her like evidence of butchery.   
      
   To figure out if what she was seeing on the surface of this fossil were   
   indeed cut marks, Pobiner sent molds of the cuts -- made with the same   
   material dentists use to create impressions of teeth -- to co-author   
   Michael Pante of Colorado State University. She provided Pante with no   
   details about what he was being sent, simply asking him to analyze the   
   marks on the molds and tell her what made them. Pante created 3D scans   
   of the molds and compared the shape of the marks to a database of 898   
   individual tooth, butchery and trample marks created through controlled   
   experiments.   
      
   The analysis positively identified nine of the 11 marks as clear matches   
   for the type of damage inflicted by stone tools. The other two marks   
   were likely bite marks from a big cat, with a lion being the closest   
   match. According to Pobiner, the bite marks could have come from one of   
   the three different types of saber-tooth cats prowling the landscape at   
   the time the owner of this shin bone was alive.   
      
   By themselves, the cut marks do not prove that the human relative who   
   inflicted them also made a meal out of the leg, but Pobiner said this   
   seems to be the most likely scenario. She explained that the cut marks   
   are located where a calf muscle would have attached to the bone --   
   a good place to cut if the goal is to remove a chunk of flesh. The cut   
   marks are also all oriented the same way, such that a hand wielding a   
   stone tool could have made them all in succession without changing grip   
   or adjusting the angle of attack.   
      
   "These cut marks look very similar to what I've seen on animal fossils   
   that were being processed for consumption," Pobiner said. "It seems most   
   likely that the meat from this leg was eaten and that it was eaten for   
   nutrition as opposed to for a ritual."  While this case may appear to   
   be cannibalism to a casual observer, Pobiner said there is not enough   
   evidence to make that determination because cannibalism requires that   
   the eater and the eaten hail from the same species.   
      
   The fossil shin bone was initially identified as Australopithecus boisei   
   and then in 1990 as Homo erectus, but today, experts agree that there is   
   not enough information to assign the specimen to a particular species of   
   hominin. The use of stone tools also does not narrow down which species   
   might have been doing the cutting. Recent research from Rick Potts, the   
   National Museum of Natural History's Peter Buck Chair of Human Origins,   
   further called into question the once-common assumption that only one   
   genus, Homo, made and used stone tools.   
      
   So, this fossil could be a trace of prehistoric cannibalism, but it   
   is also possible this was a case of one species chowing down on its   
   evolutionary cousin.   
      
   None of the stone-tool cut marks overlap with the two bite marks, which   
   makes it hard to infer anything about the order of events that took   
   place. For instance, a big cat may have scavenged the remains after   
   hominins removed most of the meat from the leg bone. It is equally   
   possible that a big cat killed an unlucky hominin and then was chased   
   off or scurried away before opportunistic hominins took over the kill.   
      
   One other fossil -- a skull first found in South Africa in 1976 --   
   has previously sparked debate about the earliest known case of human   
   relatives butchering each other. Estimates for the age of this skull   
   range from 1.5 to 2.6 million years old. Apart from its uncertain age,   
   two studies that have examined the fossil (the first published in 2000   
   and the latter in 2018) disagree about the origin of marks just below   
   the skull's right cheek bone. One contends the marks resulted from stone   
   tools wielded by hominin relatives and the other asserts that they were   
   formed through contact with sharp-edged stone blocks found lying against   
   the skull. Further, even if ancient hominins produced the marks, it is   
   not clear whether they were butchering each other for food, given the   
   lack of large muscle groups on the skull.   
      
   To resolve the issue of whether the fossil tibia she and her colleagues   
   studied is indeed the oldest cut-marked hominin fossil, Pobiner said she   
   would love to reexamine the skull from South Africa, which is claimed   
   to have cut marks using the same techniques observed in the present study.   
      
   She also said this new shocking finding is proof of the value of museum   
   collections.   
      
   "You can make some pretty amazing discoveries by going back into museum   
   collections and taking a second look at fossils," Pobiner said. "Not   
   everyone sees everything the first time around. It takes a community of   
   scientists coming in with different questions and techniques to keep   
   expanding our knowledge of the world."  This research was supported   
   by funding from the Smithsonian, the Peter Buck Fund for Human Origins   
   Research and Colorado State University.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Earth_&_Climate   
                   # Environmental_Policy # Rainforests # Ecology #   
                   Exotic_Species   
             o Fossils_&_Ruins   
                   # Fossils # Human_Evolution # Early_Humans # Cultures   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Homo_(genus) o Evolutionary_psychology o   
             Recent_single-origin_hypothesis o Homo_heidelbergensis   
             o Hotspot_(geology) o Evolution_of_the_horse o   
             Structural_alignment_(genomics) o Ice_age   
      
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   Story Source: Materials provided by Smithsonian. Note: Content may be   
   edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Briana Pobiner, Michael Pante, Trevor Keevil. Early Pleistocene cut   
         marked hominin fossil from Koobi Fora, Kenya. Scientific Reports,   
         2023; 13 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-35702-7   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230626163847.htm   
      
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