Comments on: Come a little closer now....

Come a little closer now....

troutfishing — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:10:59 -0800

[ Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern ] - "Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. The basis for this morbid accusation, made by a team of researchers in London, is a genetic signature, found almost worldwide, that points to a long history of cannibalism" (NYT)

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:19:05 -0800

I read this today also, I find it pretty interesting that journalists climb all over the more sensational aspects of the "cannibalism" angle and seem to blur over the more intellectual aspects like genetics. This study might be saying that just-barely-human ancestors in Africa may have been cannibals, that jibes pretty poorly with this stupid intro paragraph. Dr. David Goldstein, a population geneticist and co-author of the report, said the genetic evidence alone could not determine whether the balancing selection in the prion gene occurred just once, in the ancestral human population before it left Africa and An alternative explanation for the protective signature could be that early human populations were exposed to prion disease by eating infectious animals. Dr. Mead said he could not rule out that explanation but added that cannibalism seemed more likely. more likely to get your article in the paper, as well.

By: gwint

gwint — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:25:52 -0800

I'm more concerned with my aberrant Krispy Kreme gene.

By: shadow45

shadow45 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:27:02 -0800

put the lotion in the basket!!~#!@#~!

By: bradth27

bradth27 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:27:16 -0800

Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. How can you take this seriously? Jesus, the opening paragraph sounds like the voice-over for a B grade horror film....

By: Pretty_Generic

Pretty_Generic — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:28:11 -0800

Maybe people ate each other because there wasn't much else around?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:28:15 -0800

Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. Oh, eat me!

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:29:02 -0800

jessamyn - Yesterday's BBC version said: "Although some anthropologists believe that the argument for human cannibalism is not yet proven, evidence that it did happen includes human bones with human teeth marks on them, and fossilised human faeces which include human proteins." I don't know who found such artifacts, but if they exist, it seems unlikely to have been from a singe incident.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:32:02 -0800

a single incident (singe is French for monkey - Freudian slip?)

By: bradth27

bradth27 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:34:40 -0800

Human bones with human teeth marks on them, huh? Ask anyone with a two year old child about biting. They can explain that "mystery of science" real quick.

By: MrBaliHai

MrBaliHai — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:39:08 -0800

Mmmm.....long pork! [drool]

By: nofundy

nofundy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:40:31 -0800

Long pork tastes like chicken!

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:44:15 -0800

bradth27 - If you know of a two-year old child that bites into the bone, I'd run, don't walk, in the opposite direction before said child gets any bigger.

By: bradth27

bradth27 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:46:01 -0800

soyjoy- Ever had a 2 year old?

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:50:05 -0800

Yeah, a couple, thanks. Unless you mean "had" in the cannibalistic sense. Then, no.

By: stifford

stifford — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:53:48 -0800

Meat's Meat and a man's gotta eat!

By: fold_and_mutilate

fold_and_mutilate — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:54:54 -0800

I was once actually informed by a learned professor (the context, and the source for his information now escapes me), that the human sartorius muscle, properly prepared, would come closest to the gustatory experience of prime beef. Just so you know. Not sure if he said anything about fava beans, or made recommendations for an accompanying chianti....

By: magnificentsven

magnificentsven — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:58:24 -0800

I yearn for your tasty Flash

By: allaboutgeorge

allaboutgeorge — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 11:59:10 -0800

If he didn't say anything, f&m, I wouldn't worry about it. Liver and let liver!

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:03:39 -0800

Of course, if this claim is true - and I'm not enough of a scientist to judge all the data - it would mean that trope about how "we were meant to eat animals - fossilized early humans prove it" is now severely compromised, as this would show we were meant to eat each other too. Oddly, modern humans have been able to thrive without doing things the same as their prehistoric ancestors. Go figure.

By: bradth27

bradth27 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:28:37 -0800

soyjoy- Consider yourself lucky. My three year old almost bit the Lab's leg off last year. Seriously.

By: The Michael The

The Michael The — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:30:17 -0800

I don't know who found such artifacts There's clear (though scant) evidence of human cannibalism on some bones from Atapuerca, Spain, currently on exhibit at the AMNH. On the Kuru/vCJD/prions/Mad Cow front, there's an excellent book on the subject, Kuru Sorcery (Amazon link), by a medical anthropologist who first identified the Kuru. She came to the pretty strong conclusion that, at least in the Fore people, the disease was caused by the consumption of pigs (based in part on the correlation between the disease's prevalence in men and the consumption of pigs by, you guessed it, almost only men). Sorry I don't remember more details. What jessamyn said is very true, along with the fact that the cannibalism is a new theory, while the animal consumption is not.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:36:12 -0800

My three year old almost bit the Lab's leg off last year. oh, Three-year-olds. Well, that's different. Yeah, they're hellacious.

By: condour75

condour75 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:57:15 -0800

I think they'd be able to tell a two-year-old's bite radius from an adult's. Which means it was no teething accident. Now, if they find some fossilized fava beans and chiante on the side --- thip thip thip thip...

By: y6y6y6

y6y6y6 — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 12:59:11 -0800

"Ask anyone with a two year old child about biting." bradth27 - How do I say this nicely....... If your two year old is gnawing the gristle off the bones of your guests, please be so kind as to lock the little devil midget up if I ever come over. Guest: "Aaaahhhh!!!! The little bastard just bit a chunk of flesh off my leg!!!!" bradth27: "Oh, don't worry. He's just teething. Give him a bonier portion to chew on next time."

By: deanc

deanc — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 13:06:40 -0800

The reference to artifacts of human teeth marks on bones and human proteins found in remains of feces relates to the finding of cannibalism among the pre-historic Arizona Anasazi as their civilization collapsed in the 10th century. Invaders apparently would kill families, cook their remains in the family's home and then defacate the waste from that meal on the floor the "final insult" to the household they had just killed and eaten.

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 13:23:20 -0800

deanc - you probably would know more about this than I do, but I seem to recall an overall pattern of the emergence of cannibalism in response to declines in food supply, from the Anasazi [I think...] to the Maori [after they had eaten all those tasty 6-foot 'Moa' - 'Moa' was polynesian for chicken (I recall), then they found 6 foot tall 'chickens' in New Zealand! ], to....[searching for examples. I bet you know more]. Point? - cannibalistic instincts usually only surface under duress [predictably], under starvation conditions. Normally, they merely lurk in our instinctual depths, a terrifying monster of depraved craving lying beneath the threshold of conscious, biding it's time, lurking, waiting..... bwahahahaha! bwahahahahaaaaaa! [ slow, ominous drum beat... ]

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 13:34:29 -0800

We're omnivores. Sometimes the will to survive is the strongest instinct there is. So it wouldn't surprise me that we would find forensic evidence of cannibalism in times of ecological stress.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:04:45 -0800

Yep. Sometimes the will to survive is the strongest instinct there is. So it wouldn't surprise me that we would find forensic evidence of animal consumption in times of ecological stress.

By: notsnot

notsnot — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:41:20 -0800

uh, was that word-for-word quote on purpose, Soyjoy< or are you and geekhorde telepathically linked?

By: Tallguy

Tallguy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:45:41 -0800

A few comments on the discussion. 1. Researchers on cannibalism like to distinguish between survival cannibalism (which is presumed to occur anywhere under extreme circumstances, but is also assumed to be exceedingly rare), ritual cannibalism (where participants consume or pretend to consume small amounts of flesh during ritual events … has been observed in burial rituals around the world, and some researchers might also include Catholicism’s consumption of Christ’s flesh in this category), and regularized cannibalism. It is the last one everyone is so fascinated by, and the one the researchers in the article are claiming evidence for. 2. One of the problems archaeologists face in proving cannibalism took place in a certain time and place is the ambiguity of the evidence. Almost every piece of direct evidence can be explained away by other possibilities. “Butcher marks” on bones can also be evidence of certain de-fleshing burial treatments. Tooth marks most often turn out to be scavengers. A new line of evidence is the detection of human proteins in archaeologically preserved human feces. This has been used to bolster a claim of cannibalism among the Anasazi. Personally, I think this evidence is still fairly new and has not received much scrutiny. No one has demonstrated to my satisfaction that there are no other plausible explanations for the presence of the proteins (i.e. certain illnesses). This genetics argument is the latest line of indirect evidence for cannibalism. I expect there will be a lot more on this issue in the next few years as the genetics evidence and the protein evidence are given greater scrutiny. 3. Personally, I am more fascinated by the obsession with cannibalism than with the actual cases. For at least the last 500 years, Western writers have spilled a lot of ink “exposing” cannibals around the world. It is probably safe to say more time has been spent in hand-wringing over cannibalism in the last 500 years than in the actual practice. Cannibalism remains one of the last Great Taboos. I think it is important to reflect on why so much thought is given to such a rare event, and what does that say about us.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 15:27:45 -0800

Mmmm...steaky!

By: wendell

wendell — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:17:32 -0800

I just noticed I spent the entire time reading this thread and most of the other daily MeFi goodness while chewing my own fingernails to the quick. I am the other white meat! other snarky comment-ettes: Toddler bites dog. In this weeks Natural Enquirer. Omnivore? I've never even thought of trying to eat my Dodge Omni... Soyjoy did a Sean Paul! Enough with the fava bean and chianti jokes! Just remember, white wine goes with white guys... The Great Taboo? Didn't Harvey Korman do that voice on the Flintstones? Mmmmm... MeatFilter! One more note: Toto Coelo!!! (Incredibly delicious, too!)

By: deanc

deanc — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:12:22 -0800

troutfishing - yep, you're right. Cannibalism seems to emerge among the Anasazi towards the end of their presence in the American southwest. The implication, of course, is that towards the end, food supplies dried up, and marauders in search of food would kill people in their homes to eat. Some computational models attempted to understand how climate change in the area may have thinned out their population as a result of famine. Tallguy correctly points out that cannibalism is awfully difficult to prove. Even when scientists had confirmed with the Anasazi findings that the bones were defleshed and had markings of having been stewed in a pot, it was only when they had analyzed the human feces samples and found human proteins in them that we could definitively say that cannibalism had been practiced, since there have been so many other "false positives" when it comes to evidence of cannibalism. While the author of the original story goes off on a sensationalistic tangent right away in the first paragraph, I think the point that the researcher is trying to get across is that human societies in the past faced famine often enough and severe enough that they almost universally resorted to cannibalism-- it was a desperate human survival trait, not a cultural invention of some "exotic" far-flung societies.

By: soyjoy

soyjoy — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 18:53:12 -0800

sean-paul indeed... folks, reread the two posts. They are very similar, aren't they? But not identical - and therein lies the fun.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 19:41:16 -0800

Cannibalism remains one of the last Great Taboos. I think it is important to reflect on why so much thought is given to such a rare event, and what does that say about us. It's been around much longer than that--usually as part of a ritual of human sacrifice--consider Pausanias's account of the sacrifical rites of Zeus Lykaios also Zeus Lycaeus in ancient Arcadia in Greece> Both the myth of Lycaon and the sacrifice involved cannibalism and he who ate the meat of man became a wolf. Here, via Perseus, is Pausanias on the story: Lycaon the son of Pelasgus devised the following plans, which were more clever than those of his father. He founded the city Lycosura on Mount Lycaeus, gave to Zeus the surname Lycaeus and founded the Lycaean games. I hold that the Panathenian festival was not founded before the Lycaean. The early name for the former festival was the Athenian, which was changed to the Panathenian in the time of Theseus, because it was then established by the whole Athenian people gathered together in a single city. The Olympic games I leave out of the present account, because they are traced back to a time earlier than the human race, the story being that Cronus and Zeus wrestled there, and that the Curetes were the first to race at Olympia. My view is that Lycaon was contemporary with Cecrops, the king of Athens, but that they were not equally wise in matters of religion. For Cecrops was the first to name Zeus the Supreme god, and refused to sacrifice anything that had life in it, but burnt instead on the altar the national cakes which the Athenians still call pelanoi. But Lycaon brought a human baby to the altar of Lycaean Zeus, and sacrificed it, pouring out its blood upon the altar, and according to the legend immediately after the sacrifice he was changed from a man to a wolf (Lycos ). I for my part believe this story; it has been a legend among the Arcadians from of old, and it has the additional merit of probability. For the men of those days, because of their righteousness and piety, were guests of the gods, eating at the same board ;the good were openly honored by the gods, and sinners were openly visited with their wrath. Nay, in those days men were changed to gods, who down to the present day have honors paid to them--Aristaeus, Britomartis of Crete, Heracles the son of Alcmena, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and besides these Polydeuces and Castor. So one might believe that Lycaon was turned into a beast, and Niobe, the daughter of Tantalus, into a stone. But at the present time, when sin has grown to such a height and has been spreading over every land and every city, no longer do men turn into gods, except in the flattering words addressed to despots, and the wrath of the gods is reserved until the sinners have departed to the next world. All through the ages, many events that have occurred in the past, and even some that occur to-day, have been generally discredited because of the lies built up on a foundation of fact. It is said, for instance, that ever since the time of Lycaon a man has changed into a wolf at the sacrifice to Lycaean Zeus, but that the change is not for life; if, when he is a wolf, he abstains from human flesh, after nine years he becomes a man again, but if he tastes human flesh he remains a beast for ever. Alternate versions of Lycaon are examples in this rhetoric lesson. In any form, it's one of the first werewolf stories in history. The anthropologists Michael Harner and Marvin Harris surmised that Aztec human sacrifice on the grand scale was, like animal sacrifcie everywhere, the redistribution of meat, but in the valley of Mexico, under the pressure of population and a lack of large meat animals, the meat was human. This is controversial, to say the least, but the fact of cannibalism in the New World is not. So we eat human victims in religious rituals and become werewolves, either actually or symbolically. What's to argue about that?

By: geekhorde

geekhorde — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:09:09 -0800

Also consider the case of the Wendigo. Many Native Americans had stories about "Wendigos" or wild men/monsters who would terrorize people. How do you make a Wendigo? Eat human flesh. In other words, eat human flesh, and you turn into a monster. Taboos don't exist without a reason (at least, that's what I think; I'd have a hard time backing up that assertion, really...). If there is a strong social pressure against eating your neighbors, it's probably because it might have happened before in the past. And soyjoy, if you're going to quote me, put quotation marks in, thank you very much. ;) As I see it, the real danger isn't that in times of ecological stress that people might eat people. The real danger is that they might do it and find that they like it, and in effect turn into Wendigos or Morlocks or whatnot. Mmmm.... Longpig.

By: spazzm

spazzm — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:55:07 -0800

Actually, long pig tastes like pork, not chicken. I once burned my right index finger (to the bone) on a firework, and instinctively put it in my mouth. To my surprise, the taste was very close to bacon or pork ribs. It might have been the gunpowder adding some taste, but I know that taste well enough to say "not likely".

By: Slithy_Tove

Slithy_Tove — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 20:58:33 -0800

I can smell your brains.

By: biscotti

biscotti — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 21:25:10 -0800

I was once actually informed by a learned professor (the context, and the source for his information now escapes me), that the human sartorius muscle, properly prepared, would come closest to the gustatory experience of prime beef. I was once informed by a documentary film-maker (who'd done research on ritual cannibalism and claimed to have personal experience) that long pig is closest in taste and texture to pork (as spazzm says). It's the other other white meat.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:47:04 -0800

Well, consider this: pigs are being promoted as organ donors for humans because of tissue compatibility and both species share common diseases--swine flu anyone? Creationists always cite the similarities of pig and human skeletons as evidence disproving evolution but considering the habits in common to both species, one well might safely question only the concept of simian descent.

By: Slithy_Tove

Slithy_Tove — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:58:50 -0800

Oink. I've read a humorous SF story in which the plot revolved around the shocking discovery that humans are descended from pigs. Google Usenet archive comes up with:

'Family Resemblance' by Alan Nourse (Astounding, April 1953; reprinted in 'Great Science Fiction About Doctors' edt. Groff Conklin & Noah Fabricant).

By: troutfishing

troutfishing — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 23:12:06 -0800

I'm surprised that no one has brought up the German cannibalism story. I thought of it, but reconsidered: "no, too sensationalistic..." deanc - tough times are common, eh? Y2Karl - Michael Harner? The noted authority on Shamanism ? Spazzm - ouch. tasty ouch. Slithy_Tove - that's one suspicious kitty.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:53:16 -0800

Y2Karl - Michael Harner? The noted authority on Shamanism ? It appears his thinking evolved, as it were, after spending time inhaling mass quantities of hallucinogenic snuff with the Jivaro. The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice comes during the more formal and less lucrative period of his anthropological career. The link, from the Encyclopedia of Latin American History and Culture entry on New World cannibalism above, summarizes Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano's Counting Skulls: Comment on the Aztec Cannibalism Theory of Harner and Harris thusly, The theory that the Aztecs depended on the consumption of sacrificial victims for food lacks convincing data on the extent of this consumption. Some Aztecs consumed parts of some victims; however, most estimates of the number of victims eaten represent figures lower than what would have provided critical protein. Evidence points to Latin American exocannibalism as a symbolic expression of the domination of an enemy in warfare rather than as a significant source of protein. A symbolic expression of the domination of an enemy in warfare--this seems to be the same as claimed for the Anazazi, who, at least in the New Yorker article, have been described as from the same cultural complex as the Aztecs. Learning To Love Cannibalism makes note of the 18th and 19th century practice of selling ground up Egyptian mummies as folk medicine. Scholarly arguments have been made against both anthropophagy in the New World and human sacrifice among the Greeks. Some people have a hard time believing human beings can do such things, or at least some human beings sometimes. I don't know about cannibalism per se, but certainly ritual killings of aat least a quasi-religious nature--war, terrorism, suicide bombers--are still with us.

By: y2karl

y2karl — Sat, 12 Apr 2003 07:55:24 -0800

Family Resemblance--ah yes, Slithy_Tove, that was at the back of my mind when I wrote that comment.

By: specialk420

specialk420 — Sat, 12 Apr 2003 11:55:45 -0800

while we are on the subject of cannibalism ...