New fossil discoveries at Gran Dolina cave in northern Spain show that cannibalism practised by an ancient human relative called Homo antecessor was not limited to children, as earlier evidence had suggested. Researchers recovered two dozen bones and teeth belonging to this now extinct species, which lived in Europe between roughly 1.2 million and 770,000 years ago, and found that many of the newly uncovered remains came from adults rather than the young, defenceless individuals identified in previous excavations.

Homo antecessor fossils suggested that these early humans ate their young. New findings suggest that they also ate adults.

New fossil discoveries at Gran Dolina cave in northern Spain show that cannibalism practised by an ancient human relative called Homo antecessor was not limited to children, as…