Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Neanderthal Cannibals From 35,000 Years Before 'Creation Week'

Neanderthal at the Goyet Cave.

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Neandertal women and children were the victims of selective cannibalism at Goyet | CNRS

he evidence presented in my last blog post suggested that, at least in the earlier phases of contact between anatomically modern humans moving out of Africa and the indigenous Neanderthals, interactions could be relatively peaceful, involving exchanges not only of DNA but also of technology and culture.

That may not always have been the case, however, as new evidence from the Troisième caverne of Goyet in Belgium suggests. Research just published in Scientific Reports by an international team including researchers from CNRS, the University of Bordeaux, and Aix-Marseille University indicates that, between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago, when Neanderthals were close to disappearing from Western Europe, a group consisting largely of non-local females and juveniles was taken to the Goyet site, butchered, and consumed. The broader background to this violence may have included growing territorial pressures, dwindling populations, or the increasing presence of Homo sapiens in nearby regions, but the precise cause remains unknown.

So, while we cannot know exactly what triggered this episode, and while the coincidence with the arrival of Homo sapiens may or may not be significant, isotope analysis does show that those who were cannibalised were outsiders rather than members of the local population.

“Primitive” people were actually just humans like you and me. pic.twitter.com/NXGQm0sYCW
— Answers in Genesis (@AiG) April 13, 2026

For creationists, Neanderthals have always been a problem. It used to be common for them to claim that Neanderthals were known from just a single specimen later shown to be a pathological modern human suffering from arthritis. That falsehood has become harder and harder to sustain now that we have numerous specimens from across Eurasia, as well as sequenced Neanderthal genomes. The fallback position now seems to be to insist that Neanderthals fit neatly into Genesis because they were simply part of “human kind”.

Ken Ham, the creationist head of Answers in Genesis, with his characteristically casual regard for the truth and his obvious personal stake in presenting Bible-literalist mythology as history and science, has recently claimed that Neanderthals and Denisovans were descendants of Adam and Eve. What he does not explain, of course, is how he compresses the archaeological timescale of their existence, and their divergence into distinct lineages with markedly different genomes, into the 6,000 to 10,000 years allowed by creationist dogma. Like so many of Ham’s claims, it is aimed at an audience eager to have its prejudices confirmed and unlikely to fact-check anything for fear of discovering that it has been misled.

Like so much else in the history of life on Earth, and especially in the evolutionary history of our own species, all of this took place in that immense span of time before creationists imagine their small tribal god conjured up a small flat planet under a solid dome, conveniently centred on the Middle East.

The factual evidence, of course, tells a very different story: one based on testable, verifiable data, not on the campfire tales of Bronze Age herders who knew no better.

And in this case, that evidence shows that something, whether the increasing presence of modern Homo sapiens, the breakdown of Neanderthal society as their numbers declined, or some other factor entirely, led one Neanderthal group in what is now Belgium to capture outsiders, mainly women and children, bring them back to the Goyet site, and consume them.

Background^ Goyet Cave and the evidence for cannibalised outsiders. The Troisième caverne of Goyet in Belgium is one of the most important Neanderthal sites in northern Europe, with the largest known MIS 3 assemblage of Neanderthal remains from the region. It offers a rare glimpse into the lives of some of the last Neanderthals living there between about 41,000 and 45,000 years ago.

Archaeologists know the bodies were deliberately processed because the bones bear cut marks, fresh-bone fractures and percussion damage, showing that they were butchered and broken open for marrow. Some fragments were even reused as retouchers for shaping stone tools. The human remains were treated much like animal carcasses at the site, which is why the evidence points to nutritional cannibalism rather than burial or ritual treatment.

What makes the new study especially important is that isotope analysis suggests the victims were not locals. Carbon and nitrogen isotopes help reconstruct diet, while sulphur isotopes can indicate geographic origin. At Goyet, these chemical signatures suggest that the cannibalised individuals came from outside the local area, unlike Neanderthals from the nearby site of Spy. That means Goyet does not simply show that Neanderthals sometimes practised cannibalism. It suggests that, in this case, mostly female and young outsiders were brought to the cave, butchered and eaten, pointing to selective exocannibalism, possibly linked to inter-group conflict or territorial tension during the final phase of Neanderthal history in northern Europe.

The work of the team of archaeologists, led by Quentin Cosnefroy and Isabelle Crevecoeur of the University of Bordeaux, France, and Hélène Rougier of California State University, Northridge, USA, is explained in a news item from the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS):

Neandertal women and children were the victims of selective cannibalism at Goyet
The study of an assemblage of Neandertal human bones discovered in the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium) has brought to light selective cannibalistic behaviour primarily targeting female adults and children between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago.
The biological profile of the victims, identified for the first time, reveals that they were part of a group originating from outside of the local community, and they were probably brought to the site where to be consumed for food rather than in a ritual context, as suggested by the presence of traces similar to those found on animal bones hunted, butchered and consumed by occupants of the Goyet site¹ . The research, which has just been published in Scientific Reports, was conducted by an international team including researchers from the CNRS² , l’Université de Bordeaux, and l’Université d’Aix-Marseille.

Situating these analyses in the context of the late Middle Paleolithic³ – marked in Northern Europe by great cultural diversity within Neandertal groups and the emerging presence of Homo sapiens in nearby areas – such cannibalism directed at specific outsiders could reflect the existence of territorial tensions between groups that preceded the disappearance of Neandertals in the region.

These conclusions are based on ten years of research involving a reassessment of the Goyet collection⁴ through DNA analysis, radiocarbon dating, and isotopic measurements to determine the geographic origin of individuals, in addition to virtual reconstitutions enabling morphological analysis of sometimes very fragmentary human bones.

Neandertal human remains from the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium). Highly fragmented bones bear traces characteristic of fresh bone fracturing and percussion, demonstrating intentional treatment of the bodies. The individuals (GNx, for “Goyet Neandertal” x), numbering six at minimum, were identified by genetic analyses: XX indicates female gender, and XY male gender.

© Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences /Scientific Reports

Publication:
Cosnefroy, Q., Crevecoeur, I., Semal, P. et al.
Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey. Sci Rep 15, 40741 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24460-3

Abstract
The Troisième caverne of Goyet has yielded the largest assemblage of Neandertal remains in Northern Europe with clear evidence of anthropogenic modifications. However, its skeletal fragmentation has long limited detailed morphological and behavioural study on the assemblage. In this study, we integrate palaeogenetic, isotopic, morphometric, and structural analyses of the long bones to assess the biological profiles of the Neandertals from Goyet and explore whether they present particularities that could shed light on the formation of this unique cannibalised assemblage. We identify a minimum of six individuals, including four adult or adolescent females. Compared to Homo sapiens and Neandertals—including regional specimens—the females from Goyet display short statures and reduced diaphyseal robusticity of their long bones. They lack skeletal markers associated with high mobility despite isotopic evidence for non-local origins. The overrepresentation of short, morphologically gracile, non-local females, alongside two immature individuals, suggests a strong selection bias in the individuals present at the site. Dated between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago, a period marked by Neandertal cultural diversity, biological decline and the arrival of Homo sapiens in Northern Europe, the cannibalised female and juvenile Neandertals from Goyet indicate exocannibalism, possibly linked to inter-group conflict, territoriality, and/or specific treatment of outsiders.

Fig. 1

Neandertal specimens from the Troisième caverne of Goyet included in this study. Genetic sex determinations: XX indicates female, XY indicates male. Specimens belonging to the same individual are shaded in the same colour.

Cosnefroy, Q., Crevecoeur, I., Semal, P. et al.
Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey. Sci Rep 15, 40741 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-24460-3

Copyright: © 2026 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

And so, once again, the evidence from archaeology and palaeoanthropology tells a story that is both richer and far more complex than the simplistic narratives preserved in Bronze Age mythology. The events at Goyet, dated to between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago, belong to a deep and intricate human past in which different human species coexisted, interacted, and sometimes came into conflict over vast stretches of time. This is not a fleeting episode that can be compressed into a few centuries or even a few millennia; it is part of a long evolutionary history that stretches back hundreds of thousands of years.

For creationists attempting to reconcile such findings with a literal reading of the Bible, the problem is not merely one of interpretation but of scale. The entire Neanderthal story — their evolution, spread across Eurasia, interaction with Homo sapiens, and eventual disappearance — unfolds over a timeframe that is an order of magnitude greater than the 6,000–10,000 years allowed by biblical chronology. To force this evidence into that narrow window requires not just reinterpretation, but the wholesale dismissal of radiometric dating, stratigraphy, genetics, and the cumulative findings of multiple independent scientific disciplines.

In practice, this means ignoring the converging lines of evidence that all point to the same conclusion: that Neanderthals were a distinct human species with a long and separate evolutionary history, one that cannot be reconciled with the idea that all modern humans descend from a single couple living a few thousand years ago. The genetic evidence alone, showing interbreeding events tens of thousands of years before the supposed date of creation, is sufficient to dismantle that claim, but it is reinforced by the archaeological and isotopic data from sites like Goyet.

What the Goyet evidence adds is a glimpse into the lived reality of these people — their social structures, their responses to stress and scarcity, and perhaps even their capacity for inter-group violence. It humanises them, but in doing so it also anchors them firmly in a deep past that cannot be wished away. The more we learn, the clearer it becomes that the history of our species is not a short, simple tale beginning a few thousand years ago, but a vast and unfolding narrative written in stone, bone, and DNA.

And that, ultimately, is the problem for creationism. It is not that science occasionally produces inconvenient facts, but that the entire body of evidence — from caves in Belgium to genomes in modern populations — forms a coherent and mutually reinforcing account of human origins that stands in direct contradiction to biblical literalism. To accept the evidence is to accept deep time; to reject it is to reject not just one or two findings, but the whole edifice of modern science.

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