Ancient Britons carved skulls of the dead into cups and bowls

by Steven Mostyn - Feb 17 2011, 06:54

Coping with a death in the family is never easy but, beyond donating organs to the medical community, the passing of a loved one generally only involves mourning through a sombre burial or cremation.

Distressing as that process can often be, we here at The Tech Herald would fancy it’s still largely preferable to how death was dealt with by early man.

More pointedly, UK researchers from London’s Natural History Museum have this week revealed that Ancient Britons preferred to eat their dead and convert their remains into useful everyday tools.

This gruesome revelation comes after the examination of 15,000-year-old bones recovered from Cheddar Gorge in Somerset, which revealed that skulls were often stripped of flesh and broken open for use as bowls or cups.

“I think the production of the skull-cups is ritualistic,” palaeontologist and project leader Dr. Silvia Bello told the BBC. “If the purpose was simply to break the skulls to extract the brain to eat it, there are much easier ways to do that.”

According to Dr. Bello, impact scars against the bone suggest the application of focused effort in order to help preserve shape and create functional value.

“The cut marks tell us they tried to clean the skull, taking off every piece of soft tissue so that they could then modify it very precisely,” she added. “They were manufacturing something.”

Not just a habit limited to cannibalistic cavemen, similar skeletal utensils have also been found in more recent times, say the researchers, such as in Tibetan culture, as well as Fiji in Oceania and India.

Although the scientists cannot be sure of what the skull-cups were used for, the belief is they may have held blood or food during ancient rituals.

A replica of one of the skulls is scheduled to go on display at the Natural History Museum during March.

The full report has been published in the journal PLoS One.

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