Thread by @blog_supplement

The archaeogenetics of the Magdalenian cannibals of Kendrick'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
nature.com/articles/s4155…

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 (should have read Gough's cave in the 1st twt -- a real slip of the tongue for it sounded more euphonic). 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.