Source: TW
The archaeogenetics of the Magdalenian cannibals of Gough’s cave. A good study showing how two paleolithic hunter-gatherer populations in England that interacted & eventually underwent admixture had different cultures. Notably, one group of them were cannibals who produced excellent art. They are said to have practiced ritualist cannibalism and fashioned skull-cups from human calvaria – the roots of the kApAlika practice might have deep antecedents going back to the Paleolithic.
There is evidence that the prion protein is under likely balancing selection for a polymorphism PrP 129M/V wherein heterozygote with both alleles is more resistant to infection by the prion. This PrP polymorphism is very prevalent in Europe & has been proposed to have potentially emerged due to the selective pressure of an ancient highly virulent version of the prion disease that was transmitted from cannibalism. This prion disease could have come from the now-extinct megafauna the Magdalenians hunted & further spread through their populations by cannibalism and the use of the skull cups.
This fits well with the inferred diet of the cannibals of the Gough’s cave. It also might have been the basis for dietary shifts seen in the Epigravettian Culture which had less of megafauna & apparently no cannibalism. One wonders if a dietary distinction helped in the eventual triumph of the Epigravettians (Western Hunter-Gatherers) over the Magdalenians, with later facing a major decline from the prionic pandemic.
Home antecessor atm, there’s something eerie about a dead-end archaic human species that developed gracile features like modern humans and went out in a blaze of predatory cannibalism.
Reminds us of the much later Magdalenians (sapiens) and whether their going down & the eventual rise of the Epigravettians (Western Hunter-Gatherers) was due to prion disease from cannibalistic brain-eating.