A British archaeologist Jill Cook, of the British Museum, will give a talk about Neanderthals from Krapina and theories of their cannibalism. 

From 1898-1904, the Croatian paleoanthropologist Dragutin Gorjanovic Kramberger excavated the site of Krapina, 55km north of Zagreb and discovered one of the most important sites in the study of the palaeolithic in Europe. Over 600 complete and fragmentary pieces of fossilized Neanderthal bone were found, representing at least eighteen Neanderthals, dating from between 120,000 and 80,000 years ago. This is the largest collection of Ice Age bones known in Europe.

Kramberger reported he had found evidence of cannibalism, at the time not so much a revelation as to be expected: the past was popularly accepted as a savage era, in which cannibalism was surely the norm. However, times have changed, and by the 1980s, the subject of cannibalism had become a widely debated topic.

Jill Cook, Deputy Keeper in the Department of Prehistory and Europe will expand on her recent article in the British Museum Magazine. Having studied the remains previously at the Croatian Natural History Museum in Zagreb, Jill was invited back this year to re-examine the evidence. So, was the evidence as a result of cannibalism or could some other explanation be found?

This fascinating story not only unravels one of the great mysteries of palaeolithic studies, but also tells the story of the changing fortunes of a wonderful collection. Within a little over a decade the collection has gone from being threatened with destruction in war to being the inspiration for a purpose-built museum of human evolution in Krapina.