Between roughly 300,000 and 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals were a species of human-like creatures who used sophisticated tools and survived numerous ice ages. Unfortunately, one prominent expert now argues, they were also quite tasty.

Debate has raged for years over the Neanderthals' relationship to modern humans and the reasons behind their extinction.

Now, after discovering a jawbone that appears to have had the flesh peeled off of it, a team led by archaeologist Fernando Rozzi has published a study saying that that Homo sapiens regularly attacked, killed and even ate their ancient cousins.

Hmm. That's all very well, but Neanderthals were pretty big and we're not sure we could manage a whole one. What did hobbits taste like?

What do you think about our potentially cannibalistic origins? Contemporary humans have been twittering guiltlessly about the controversial findings since the news broke:

@MikeMongo: Mmmm-mm neanderthal!

@baffled: we ate them - with asparagus and a white wine sauce...

@Schroedinger99: I rather hope this turns out not to have been true

@uclaresearcher: so much for the argument humans are intrinsically vegans.

@valdezign: Try the brow! It's delicious!

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