>Some Neanderthals buried their dead. Other Neanderthals ate them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/07/08/grisly-evidence-of-neanderthal-cannibalism-uncovered-in-a-belgian-cave/
Can Dungeons and Dragons help us make sens of this?
It makes perfect sense.
>It's worth noting that practicing cannibalism might make these Neanderthals more like humans, not less. Fossils found at the Klasies River Caves in South Africa suggest that Homo sapiens ate their own kind as early as 120,000 years ago. There are still incidents of cannibalism today.
>>48208779
[neanderthal predation theory intensifies]
Stop thinking of neanderthals as our benevolent cave brothers and start thinking of them as wolves with knives. 95% of the neanderthal diet was meat. The Skhul/Qafzeh proto-humans who first encountered them were seen as meat. Humans eventually fought back and won with the invention of the bow (and the spear thrower).
Make dealings, neanderthal anthropomorphists.
>>48208779
How else are you suppose to grok somebody?
>>48208779
How do you know they were eating *their* dead and not someone else's dead?
![Truly+a+warboss+worth+fighting+for+_a725f8f61d5cf2e9237669ed122c881f[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/XtDA6Gt.png "Truly+a+warboss+worth+fighting+for+_a725f8f61d5cf2e9237669ed122c881f[1].png")
>>48208779
>Not eating your fallen companions
>Letting all that protein go to waste
>Not maximizing your gainz
Wot da zog?
>>48212108
>bro dies from parasites
>eat bro's body
>be killed by parasites
That's a really clever plan you have there.
>>48208779
So in other words, they were even more like us than previously thought. Ok. Human cannibalism isn't exactly a new phenomenon.
>>48212608
People who die in battle get eaten, thone who die sick get buried or just tossed.
>Some ducks raped their dead. Other ducks raped them in turn.
https://www.bigduckdicks.com/news/speaking-of-mating-season/wp/2016/07/08/feathery-evidence-of-duck-dicks-in-corpses-uncovered-in-every-wetland-ever/
>>48212608
>Bro dies from parasites
>Eat bro's body
>Kill parasites
Everybody wins.
Neanderthals could have had greater inherent intellectual capacity than homo sapiens sapiens, but just imagine the constraints their far greater needed caloric intake demanded. The hunger. For what? A denser/more efficient musculature? What a tragedy.
>>48208779
>citing wapo unironically
Shiggy ...
>>48212808
Real animals don't really do that. It's an atheist fraud perpetrated by liberal socialist scienstists on the coasts. #RiggedSystem
If we're going to throw weird D&D logic into this, eating your dead is a great counter against necromancy.
No bodies means none of the easy to make undead can take root in your society, and your enemies can use Speak With Dead to gain information from your fallen.
Though if we're talking about powergaming dead body disposal you'd feed your dead to some sort of friendly monster for protection like a otyugh or gray render. This cuts down on needing to grind up the bones to prevent skeleton animation and gives you an ally that is above the CR of your standard nobody NPC.
>>48214224
Imagine if they lived today. They'd be literal superhumans with our current food production capabilities.
