10-16-2015, 07:57 AM
In times of extreme privation cannibalism is relatively common, it occurred during the Thirty Years War in the early 1600s and most recently during the Siege of Lenningrad in WWII, when a reputed 200 people were arrested for acts of cannibalism.
The archaeology of the Iron Age in Britain, and elsewhere in Western Europe, does reveal a rather casual regard for human remains. We know that Celts operated a taboo system for certain food animals; British Celts, according to Caesar, were denied hare and goose flesh. In such a system a reverse taboo for eating human flesh, by certain people under certain ritual circumstances, is certainly possible. However,it is equally possible that long-bone marrow from human sacrificial victims may have been burnt on altars, like the fat of sacrificial beasts was by the Greeks and Romans.
The archaeology of the Iron Age in Britain, and elsewhere in Western Europe, does reveal a rather casual regard for human remains. We know that Celts operated a taboo system for certain food animals; British Celts, according to Caesar, were denied hare and goose flesh. In such a system a reverse taboo for eating human flesh, by certain people under certain ritual circumstances, is certainly possible. However,it is equally possible that long-bone marrow from human sacrificial victims may have been burnt on altars, like the fat of sacrificial beasts was by the Greeks and Romans.
Martin
Fac me cocleario vomere!
Fac me cocleario vomere!
