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Rabat – The man whose 500,000 year old skeletal ruins archaeologists found in Morocco, was eaten by hyenas, according to a group of scientists tasked with examining the remains.Â
Researchers found the skeleton in a cave called Grotte a Hominids near Casablanca, but, after examining bite marks on the man’s high bone, they recently hypothesized that large scavengers – most likely hyenas – ate him.
It remains unclear if the animals had hunted the man or gathered to eat his body after he died of other causes. In either circumstance, the examiners said the find proves that carnivores ate humans in some regions of Morocco.
Other skeletons found in nearby sites have shown that humans also preyed on the animals.
According to scientists cited by the British site the Mirror, early humans, known as hominins, competed for space and food with animals during the Middle Pleistocene period. Despite the prevalence of the theory, almost no evidence for direct interaction between the two groups had been found before the skeleton’s investigation.
“Although encounters and confrontations between archaic humans and large predators of this time period in North Africa must have been common, the discovery is one of the few examples where hominin consumption by carnivores is proven,”Camille Daujeard, from the National Museum of Natural History in France, said.
The scientific journal PLOS ONE published the results of the scientists examination of the femur bone, which revealed bite marks and associated fractures indicative of carnivore chewing.
The makes were mostly located towards the two ends of the femur, while the softer parts of the bone were completely crushed.
Camille Daujeard, of the Museum National D’Histoire Naturelle in France, said: “Although encounters and confrontations between archaic humans and large predators of this time period in North Africa must have been common, the discovery is one of the few examples where hominin consumption by carnivores is proven.”
