Cannibal tribes who used human skulls as cups were among some of the earliest humans to migrate to Britain, researchers found.
The oldest human DNA data ever obtained in the UK shows two distinct groups of early humans migrated here around the end of the last Ice Age.
Researchers from University College London, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute analysed to sets of skeletal remains from up to 15,000 years ago.
Radiocarbon dating and DNA extraction of remains found in Kendrick’s Cave in North Wales showed one set of early humans ate mainly fish and large marine mammals.
A second set of remains from a women found in Gough’s Cave, Somerset, showed this rival group ate red deer, cattle and wild horses.
However at Gough’s Cave human skulls were discovered modified into ‘skull-cups’ - suggesting evidence for ritualistic cannibalism.
Only around a dozen skeletons of this age have been discovered in Britain.
Co-author Dr Sophy Charlton, of the Natural History Museum, said: “The period we were interested in is part of the Palaeolithic - the Old Stone Age.
“This is an important time period for the environment in Britain, as there would have been significant climate warming, increases in the amount of forest and changes in the type of animals available to hunt.”
Gough’s Cave is where Britain’s famous Cheddar Man was discovered in 1903. He had a mixture of ancestries at 85% western hunter-gatherer and 15% of the older type.
The latest woman discovered in Gough’s Cave showed died about 15,000 years ago and her ancestors were part of an initial migration into north-west Europe around 16,000 years ago.
The man from Kendrick’s Cave is from a later period, around 13,500 years ago, with his ancestors being part of a western hunter-gatherer group that migrated to Britain around 14,000 years ago.
Researchers discovered items such as a decorated horse jawbone suggesting Kendrick’s Cave was used as a burial site.
The migrations described in the new study occurred after the last ice age, when around two-thirds of Britain was covered by glaciers.
As the climate warmed up and the glaciers melted humans began to move back into northern Europe.
Co-author Dr Mateja Hajdinjak, of the Francis Crick Institute, said: “Finding the two ancestries so close in time in Britain, only a millennium or so apart, is adding to the emerging picture of Palaeolithic Europe which is one of a changing and dynamic population.”
