Developments in Brief : Bones May Indicate Stone Age Cannibalism

British archeologists have unearthed bones in an ancient cave that point to the possibility of Stone Age cannibalism in Britain, a spokesman for the Natural History Museum said last week.

Human bones found in Gough’s Cave in southwest England indicated that at least seven people were butchered there about 12,000 years ago, the spokesman said.

The bones included part of an adult skull, with parallel incision marks that show where stone tools were used to remove skin and flesh, and another skull that had been chipped away so that the brain could be extracted whole.

Archeologists are investigating whether the remains had been cannibalized, either for culinary or ritual purposes.

Experts say the cave discoveries may be significant because relatively little evidence exists for cannibalism among hunter-gatherer societies such as those that existed in Britain during the Stone Age.