Speaking Archaeologically™

As you may have gauged from the title itself, this is a dummy's experience of the lecture on Prehistoric Cannibalism that we had with Dr. James Cole recently. For people who still did not get it, yes the dummy of this story is me and the me here was clearly a stranger to Prehistory (I mean if you discount the one semester where I tried learning all hominin profiles or studied various lithic technologies, hoping that a question on Prehistory does not pop up in the exam). But then the future is unpredictable, and sometimes you find yourself doing that one thing that you thought you would never ever do. For me, it was diving into Prehistory pretty hard. And despite the initial intimidation, I fell harder and harder for it, especially after the lecture on 9th September 2020.  I believe I am not the only one who was a little scared of this concept of cannibalism. I mean, I always thought of it as something made up by a human mind, when it decides to play tricks on you and produces st

  Cannibalism. It is, perhaps, that one word that conjures up feelings of dread and repulsion but still keeps one enthralled in its mysteries.  It has been likened to a “grotesque eccentricity” in the popular narrative, its meaning imagined in the tales of Hannibal Lector and Typee, more than often arousing intrigue and a morbid fascination in the society. Humans, you see, are complex, curious creatures who strive to unravel the inexplicable and dive deep into the parts that they relegate to the dark side. We become petrified to tread those dangerous borders between the known and unknown but still do so anyway. The incomprehensible at times becomes sinister to us, making us even more hostile and incredulous to other facets of the same. Just like this word, Cannibalism.   Now, you may wonder why am I suddenly starting my own Lore- like the podcast (Ok, fine, maybe a bit. Hey, I absolutely adore that podcast and yes, I am not a secret serial killer in making. I guess). Why am I suddenly