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It seems as though ancient cannibals had a "waste not, poverty not" attitude, suggests the brainstorm of Ice Age cups prefabricated from human skulls — what haw be the primeval ones known, scientists say.

Human skulls hit been prefabricated into macabre cups and bowls for thousands of years. For instance, in the ordinal century B.C., ancient Hellenic historian Herodotus portrayed the Scythians as grouping who drank from the skulls of their enemies, and kindred traditions hit been described by the ancient Chinese historian Sima Qian sometime in the prototypal or second centuries B.C.

Still, archaeological evidence of how skull cups were prefabricated is extremely rare. Now scientists hit discovered threesome skull cups in England that are roughly 14,700 years old, the primeval ones that researchers hit addicted ages for and the exclusive ones famous so farther from the British Isles.

In a place famous as Gough's Cave in Somerset, England, skull fragments from at least five grouping were found — a young child most 3 years old, two adolescents, an grown and an senior adult. There were signs that their modify jaws had the goody sucked out, suggesting cannibalism occurred.

Cut marks and dents on the clappers suggest they were scalped and scrupulously scraped decent of wound and flesh with flint tools presently after death. The crafters then removed the grappling clappers and bases of the skulls from the adults and the 3-year-old, meticulously chipping at the busted edges of the resulting cups, possibly to alter their rims.

"Possibly the most surprising thing is how complete at manipulating human bodies these primeval humans were," scientist Silvia Bello, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London, told LiveScience. "It was a rattling fastidious process that meet proves how technologically modern this accumulation was. It also demonstrates a rattling Byzantine funerary behavior."

"It's impracticable to know how the skull cups were utilised backwards then," said scientist Chris Stringer, a paleoanthropologist at the Natural History Museum. "But in past examples, they haw hold blood, intoxicant or matter during rituals."

A fine patch of the skull prize from the grown individualist module go on display at the Natural History Museum in author on March 1 for threesome months.

The scientists careful their findings online Feb. 16 in the journal PLoS ONE.

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