Edwin Esteves
Knell
Anthropology 103
25 April 2017
Cannibalism
The topic I chose to address for this essay was “Archaeologist Rediscover Cannibalism.” Upon reading this article, I was fascinated on how archaeologist were able to determine that cannibalism was in fact an ongoing epidemic from recent centuries and not just thousands of years ago. Cannibalism is the action of a person or people eating flesh of their own species, which in this case would be human on human. People in history have had their reasons on why they take part in being cannibals, but as you get more educated on the topic you views and thoughts will change.
The article “Archaeologists rediscover Cannibalism,” it mentions that archaeologist Christy G Turner ii found over hundreds of bones, belonging to an estimated 25 or so people and saw a scene of what he described to be a “aftermath of a feast.” This goes to show that the problems that were going on with cannibalism was something to take notice of. In addition, there was physical evidence that derived from the human bones that showed that the bones had cut marks and burns. The cut marks and burns are likely the results of other humans preparing the body for it to be cooked and the burn marks are the result of the meat being cooked to be used for cannibalistic acts. Also, rather than solely eating the meats and such of people researchers said the following “Their long bones were broken–he believes for marrow–and their vertebral bodies were missing, perhaps crushed and boiled for oil.” People would also use bones for other necessity for cooking and living by turning bones into oil which is something I would have never thought.
Throughout the course of research regarding the human bones, researchers were able to connect bones to specific areas and to different groups of humans. As of hundreds of years ago, it is believed the indians were taking part in cannibalism. With more connections being made with cannibalism, archaeologist determined that hundreds of thousands of years ago, Neanderthals, Aztecs and people of Fiji were among the groups of people directly responsible for eating there own kind. Some of the practices regarding cannibalism was very awe dropping. For example, Jacqueline Turner who studied cannibalism explained “the head is roasted and dumped into a pit unceremoniously, and other pieces get left all over the floor.” However, the idea of cannibalism has been contradicted by many. Anthropologist William Arens explained that cannibalism was an idea that had never been fully proven from eye witness account and the idea came from what he thought to be a “bad science”.
I chose to write about this topic as I have heard about it in the past, but I wanted a more in depth account about what happened. I have seen movies like The Cannibal Holocaust and many of the types of characteristics of cannibalism I read about in this articles are displayed in the movie. You have tribes that are fighting each other and then simply will eat human flesh in order to survive as that is there only means of survival. Also my curiosity set in when I was choosing a topic because sometimes cannibalism is long forgotten as it rarely happens in modern day , so in order to learn about it we have to resort into studying past history of indian tribes and such.
In my view, this article was able to enhance my knowledge of how cannibalism took part in history. It is hard to believe that our very own people living in Mexico and southern parts of the United States ate humans. If you really think about it, if the only means of being able to live relied on you eating other human flesh, most people would do it. I would imagine myself stranded on an island alone, and if my only means of survival are to eat other humans remains, it is hard for me to admit but I would probably have no other choice but to eat them. I have thankfully next experience anything like this, but I have seen animals that have ate each other to live. A prime example is are spiders. Male spiders sacrifice themselves for female spiders right after mating so they can be a food source for the female spider.
To conclude with, cannibalism was a very good topic to research and learn about. It was something new to get in depth with. I have learned how the different groups of people relied on cannibalism. Also, well if I were to be in the position of choosing life or death, I might just end up resulting to cannibalism as a last resort.