California State University, Northridge paleoanthropologist Hélène Rougier has uncovered one of the biggest finds in her field — the first identified remains of cannibalized Neandertals in Northern Europe.
The remains are part of the 21-drawer collection of bones excavated from the Goyet cave in Belgium found more than 150 years ago and are stored at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences. Details of Rougier’s discovery were published in the science journal Scientific Reports on July 6.
The cannibalized remains had gone unnoticed for more than 150 years, Rougier said.
“Because the remains are cannibalized, they were broken … [the Neandertals] really broke the bones in many pieces,” she said. “We put aside bones that we wouldn’t have selected normally because they were not diagnostically human. Then we made a puzzle and put them together to show human bones.”
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