Religion among fossil men

Keith Walker (Keith_R_Walker@compuserve.com)
Thu, 30 Oct 1997 05:43:09 -0500

Message text written by Glenn Morton
>In a related religious note, there is evidence of cannibalism among the
>inhabitants of Gran Dolina, Spain 780,000 years ago. The bones of the
>humans showed clear signs of defleshing. Many primitive cultures deflesh
>the dead and pass the bones of deceased out to relatives as a means of
>passing "uncle Henry's" wisdom or spirit on to the clan. It is a religious

>belief. If it was not defleshing, then it was cannibalism, also a means
of
>obtaining the spirit of the deceased for your own use--a religious belief.

>(E. Carbonell et al, "Lower Pleistocene Hominids and Artifacts from
>Atapuerca TD6 Spain," Science 269(1995), p. 826-830.

How do they _know_ that this defleshing is anything to do with religious
practices? I recognise that it _could_ relate to religious practice, but
this seems like whistling in the wind to me. Where's the evidence for this
reconstruction? Is all modern cannibalism religiously linked? Has all
cannibalism always been religiously linked? Nice theory, but really...

Keith Walker