Human barbeques Neanderthal = cannibalism?

Factual Questions
1

A recent study found that humans appear to have eaten neanderthals. The author of the study cites this as evidence of human cannibalism. Wikipedia, however, says that cannibalism is when one member of a species eats another member of the same species. Another popular press article I found says that humans and neanderthals were probably different species.

So what’s the straight dope on this? Sure, it all tastes like chicken, but is a human eating a neanderthal cannibalism or not? I suppose this is about what it would have looked like.

“How Neanderthals met a grisly fate: devoured by humans”

“Did Neanderthals and Homo sapiens mate?”

“Cannibalism (zoology)”

2

A related question: Would a neanderthal-era human have recognized a neanderthal as such?

3

‘That’s suthin’ ta stir ye up an’ make yer blood tickle.’

4

It’s all subjective sematics.

First off there is no objective definition of what constitutes a species, it’s simply a convenient subjective term that humans use to lump together species that are arbitrarily more closely related to one another than to other species. Whether humans and Neanderthals are the same species is an entirely arbitrary choice. Most zoologists think they are not the same species, but don’t forget that large number believe that they are. So whether it is cannibalism even by your definition is an entirely arbitrary choice.
Secondly I will repeat what I have so often repeated here, and what shouldn’t really need saying but apparently does: Wikipedia is in no way a reliable or complete source of information. If you want an accurate, reliable definition go to an accurate dictionary. The OED defines cannibalism as “The practice of eating the flesh of one’s fellow-creatures”. No other definition is given. The primary definition of a cannibal is “A man (esp. a savage) that eats human flesh; a man-eater, an anthropophagite”. It does list the “eater of own species” definition later, but it is not the only or prime definition.

So by either defining a cannibal as a man who eats another man, or by defining cannibalism as eating the flesh of ones fellows it is cannibalism.

Neanderthal era humans were modern era humans in every respect. They would have been neither more nor less able to make the distinction than any person you know.

Not that this tells us anything about whether they did make such a distinction. You don’t have to go back very far to find instances of humans stating quite explicitely that various other contemporary human groups were animals and killing them and even eating them on that basis. Probably as recently as this morning in fact. If we accept that the stated beliefs are in fact held then large numbers of people alive today don’t recognise large numbers of other people as being members of the same species.

No reason to believe that ancient people were any more or less prone to this than their descendants.

5

Are you looking for some philosophical principle or just a definition? If the latter, here:
Merriam-Webster defines cannibalism as:

1 : the usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being 2 : the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of the same kind

“Kind” is obviously vague. Human is defined as:

a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens: MAN ; broadly : HOMINID)

According to Dictionary.com, Random House defines cannibalism as:

1. the eating of human flesh by another human being,
2. the eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of its own kind.
3. the ceremonial eating of human flesh or parts of the human body for magical or religious purposes, as to acquire the power or skill of a person recently killed.

while The American Heritage Dictionary has it as a derived form of

cannibal: 1. A person who eats the flesh of other humans. 2. An animal that feeds on others of its own kind.

Again, “kind” is of no help. For human we find according to Random House:

**1. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or having the nature of people: human frailty.
2. consisting of people: the human race. **

and

5. a human being.

which leads us to

**human being

  1. any individual of the genus Homo, esp. a member of the species Homo sapiens.
  2. a person, esp. as distinguished from other animals or as representing the human species: living conditions not fit for human beings; a very generous human being.**

and according to The American Heritage Dictionary:

**human

  1. A member of the genus Homo and especially of the species H. sapiens.
  2. A person: the extraordinary humans who explored Antarctica.**

Looking up person, we find

1. a human being, whether man, woman, or child: The table seats four persons.
2. a human being as distinguished from an animal or a thing. [Random House]

and

A living human. Often used in combination: chairperson; spokesperson; salesperson. [American Heritage]

So there you go.

Only relevant definitions provided.

6

I appreciate your reply. Posting this particular comment in my thread is pretty offensive though. What do you take me for? Next time leave the Wikipedia bashing out, mmk?

7

That story really did make my blood tickle… <insert inappropriately happy smiley>

8

That did come across a bot strong. My apologies.

However the point stands: Wikipedia isn’t accurate or reliable. That’s not Wikipedia bashing, it’s just the way things are. On issues of indisputable hard fact Wikipedia might be reliable but in anything as controversial as cannibalism it’s horrible, as we’ve just discovered.

9

If the GEICO cavemen are supposed to be Neanderthals, then I would feel that it is cannibalism.

10

Not really. The definition commonly used is whether a male and a female can mate and produce fertile offspring (excluding diseases of various kinds). If they can, they are of the same species. If they cannot, they aren’t. This is complicated in asexual beings and beings that exchange plasmids, but neither humans nor neanderthals fit those descriptions.

It’s as good as its sources, which apparently (according to the journal Nature) makes it as good as Britannica. Contrary to popular belief, being mentioned in Wikipedia does not devalue a source.

11

All this talk about modern humans and neanderthals coexisting in a changing world, possibly even mating, the older “cousin” simply withering away due to a slight disadvantage in the long-term coping mechanisms compared to us modern humans smell like the good ol’ pacifistic delusion common among archeologists and anthropologists alike.

We have a never-ending supply of evidence on lethal violence between human groups in the past and present. Guys like the Fuegians, highly primitive hunter-gatherers routinely killing each other in raids and ambushes, even wiping off competing, closely related (anthropologically speaking) family groups when the opportunity arises. Hunter-gatherer groups defining themselves as ‘humans’ or ‘real people’, and other human societies around as something below that are common as dirt. What did the early modern humans do when encountering strange, ugly, deformed oddballs in their backyard, killing their game? Kill on sight. Maybe even eat one when hard times hit. Whether violence was a deciding factor in Neanderthals’ demise or not, hard to tell. But humans having sex with Neanderthals etc. is so out there it’s amazing. Pacifistic delusions, I tells ya.

12

Why are all the males, even what appears to be a child, half-bald except for the one bearded dude who seems to try to lecture them and convince them that what they’re doing is wrong? (And are those scales?)

13

Used in junior high school books several decades ago perhaps. Not used in actual science. If anybody were to try to apply this standard then cattle and bison are the same species, as are wolves and coyotes and horses and donkeys, all of which freely interbreed and produce fertile offspring to varying degrees.

And if you are prepared to believe that a bison and a cow are the same species then there can be little doubt that you accept humans and Neanderthals.

It is “complicated”, in the sense of being rendered totally useles, by the literally thousands of species that hybridise freely across species, genus and even family boundaries and produce fertile offspring.
I know the idea was once widely printed in HS texts, but ilve never been able to work out where it originated. It has always been a patently obvious that it isn’t true.

I couldn’t agree more.

And its sources sources include the KKK website, numerous conspiracy theory sites, websites promoting the healing powers of crystals and, in cases like this one, random anonymous internet users.

It indisputably is as good as its sources. I really don’t think we are arguing here.

14

And between you and the journal Nature, I know which source I value more highly.

About the definition of species, well, there are real scientists who think Neanderthals were the same species as us. Link gotten via Wikipedia, so it’s probably worthless. I mean, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences probably publishes any crap they find in the gutter behind the local Chinese place:

So tell me again just how ignorant it is of me to think Neanderthals might be H. sapiens.

15

Point of fact: it was common for whaling crews out of Nantucket to report that members of their crews had been eaten in order for them to survive shipwreck. It was an expected result of being lost at sea for extended periods, and while it was abhorrent, it was not an event to result in ostracism. A case in point is presented very well in the book In The Heart of the Sea by Philbrick about the whaling ship Essex. That event took place in about 1820 and is well documented.

16

No, I have to go with Blake on this. The reason there are multiple ways to define species is because it is in fact a subjective assessment. The Biological Species Concept, the Evolutionary Species Concept, the Phylogenetic Species Concept, the Phenetic Species Concept and others are all attempts to come up with ways to order organisms based on different philosophical frameworks. While in over 90+% of cases what ends up being described are the same under any of them, you do get changes at the margins. Whether a species is “real” or not is very much a semantic argument.

That said, the above is a bit hyperbolic. While it is declining in popularity among professional systematists/taxonomists ( and it used to be more the former than the latter ), I’d bet it is still the predominate definition used by a majority of biologists today. Or at least it certainly was as recently as a decade ago ( which admittedly was the last time I had my nose buried in the academic literature related to the argument ). Beyond that it undoubtedly still the favorite among the general public.

And you know the late Ernst Mayr would have a long, tendentious reply to your examples, explaining in great detail just how the BSC was still perfectly applicable ;). I agree with you, but he wouldn’t.

17

As Blake says, this is flatly incorrect. It has never been part of the Biological Species Concept, although it is a very common misconception. (Someone brings this up, incorrectly, in virtually any thread involving speciation.) The actual standard, according to the BSC, is that true species are those that do not regularly hybridize in nature (or, for those that do not occur in the same area, are considered not likely to do so if they did come in contact). More technically, species are those populations that do not (actually or potentially) regularly exchange genes with other such populations.

There are a very large number of species (including all species of Canis and many ducks) that will produce fully fertile hybrids in captivity (and rarely in nature if they occur together). While the fact that two populations cannot produce fertile hybrids is good evidence that they are not the same species, the converse - that they are capable of producing fertile hybrids - is of no great value in determining if they are the same species according to the BSC.

18

While the BSC continues to be one of the dominant ones used by biologists, most of the general public doesn’t understand what it actually says, like Derleth.

19

Quoth Toxylon:

I don’t see the conflict between these two views. Just saying that sapiens and neanderthalis coexisted in no way implies that they coexisted peacefully, and saying that sapiens outcompeted neanderthalis is perfectly consistent with us having outcompeted them militarily. As for the two species having sex, is it really so implausible that a species that’s been known to have sex with sheep would likewise get it on with a species so closely related as to be almost indistinguishable biologically?

20

OK, I should have checked Wikipedia about the definition of ‘species’ rather than poking my defective memories.