The Weirdest Things Ancient Humans Actually Did

Skull Cups and Decorated Bones at Gough's Cave00:00

About 15,000 years ago in a cave in what is now England, a group of people ate their dead. They turned the skulls into drinking cups and carved patterns into the leftover arm bones. Human bones were found mixed with animal bones at Gough's Cave in Cheddar Gorge, Somerset, England. Both sets of bones had been treated exactly the same way, with cut marks where meat had been sliced off, bones cracked open to extract marrow, and human tooth marks pressed into human bone. Three human skulls had been carefully turned into bowls. Researcher Sylvia Bello from the Natural History Museum in London described how the skull was stripped of flesh, the bottom was removed, and the edges were smoothed and shaped neatly. The people had plenty of animal meat at the site and were not starving, indicating this was deliberate ritual behavior rather than necessity. They also carved zigzag patterns into the arm bones of the same people they had eaten.

Neanderthal Eagle Claw Jewelry02:00

In 1899, a scientist digging at a Neanderthal site near Krapina, Croatia found hundreds of Neanderthal bones and thousands of stone tools mixed with eight eagle claws from at least three different birds. The claws remained unstudied for over a hundred years until 2013, when museum curator Davorka Radovčić noticed tiny cut marks on them. Published in 2015, the research showed the claws had been cut, polished, and shaped to be strung together as a necklace or bracelet. These claws are 130,000 years old, dating to 80,000 years before modern humans arrived in Europe. Neanderthals independently developed this practice of hunting eagles and wearing their claws as jewelry, representing a statement about identity and achievement.