Cannibalism: Kevin Simler has a book review of Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution by Joseph Jordania that theorizes that predators eating dead humans was seen as uniquely bad due to how it could ‘teach’ them that humans (or the ‘superorganism’ of the tribe dancing and loudly chanting in sync while banging their weapons (rocks)) loudly are not so hard to kill after all.
An enemy eating the dead is then a desecration of their person or of your tribe, so the dead must be retrieved from combat and the corpse disposed of properly (possibly by cannibalism, but only by the ingroup). Sky burials feature scavenging eating the corpse, but not lions.
The ancient practice of mutulating or desecrating the dead, and especially eating them, is a way to show utter dominance, that taps in to fundamental human instincts.
(I am skeptical of this theory, mostly because of it having multiple steps without solid backing. I most buy the part about music as aposematism and coordination enhancer; but am more skeptical of the corpse destroying parts).
Cannibalism: Kevin Simler has a book review of Why Do People Sing?: Music in Human Evolution by Joseph Jordania that theorizes that predators eating dead humans was seen as uniquely bad due to how it could ‘teach’ them that humans (or the ‘superorganism’ of the tribe dancing and loudly chanting in sync while banging their weapons (rocks)) loudly are not so hard to kill after all.
An enemy eating the dead is then a desecration of their person or of your tribe, so the dead must be retrieved from combat and the corpse disposed of properly (possibly by cannibalism, but only by the ingroup). Sky burials feature scavenging eating the corpse, but not lions.
The ancient practice of mutulating or desecrating the dead, and especially eating them, is a way to show utter dominance, that taps in to fundamental human instincts.
(I am skeptical of this theory, mostly because of it having multiple steps without solid backing. I most buy the part about music as aposematism and coordination enhancer; but am more skeptical of the corpse destroying parts).