Re:
>
> I will very interested in the reference concret cited for Loren
> Cordain: "bucher marks on mammoths in a number of european sites
> indicate cut-marks....", because I don't know that  bone
> modifications are really "cut-marks" and the european sites.... For
> example in the superb Gary HAYNES  book: Mammoths, Elephants and
> Mastodonts not cite cut-marks at european sites.
>
> I hope my message is not very difficult to read for you
>
> Sincerely
>
> Jorge Martinez
>

There is a school of thought which maintains that cut marks on human
bones are evidence of cannibalism, especiaally when found in archaeo
settings.  However the cut marks are frequently on the _inner_ concave
surfaces of these bones and are incompatible with the idea of a sawing
process such as you might use when slicing meat or trying to separate
it from bone.  The pattern rather suggests ritual markings for religious
purposes.  The tendency to want to believe in cannibalism is
interesting one and was pointed up by Arens in "The Man-eating Myth -
Anthropophagy and Anthropology" OUP 1979.

Arens perhaps overstated the case against cannibalism but the
controversy is not irrelevant in the light of current debate about
transfer of "prions" from animals to humans.  This is supposed to be
the mechanism in the BSE -> Creutzfeld Jacob disease transfer.  The
original idea of transmission of type of this disease by eating was due
to Gajdusek who studies alleged cannibalistic transmission of Kuru in
New Guinea.  However one would not explain an epidemic of say measles in
Manhatten by assuming that the natives were eating one another, although
many diseases could be transmitted in this way.

Food for thought?

Dick Bird
School of Behavioural and Environmental Studies
University of Northumbria
NE1 8ST
UK