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Cannibalism And Its Impact On Society

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Introduction
Throughout the course of our evolution hominids have engaged in, what today would be considered savage, inhumane practices, such as manslaughter, torture and mutilation (Lewis, Jurmain & Kilgore, 2013). These actions today are considered almost taboo in society, however anthropologists who study such behaviour and historians who have meticulously documented it are completely comfortable divulging their work to the scientific community. Based on this acceptance, one would expect the topic of cannibalism to be met with the same understanding within academia. Astoundingly though, the discussion of cannibalism within our ancestral past encounters much controversy and is greatly looked down upon within the general population (White, 2001). For those who study this highly provocative practice, like paleoanthropologist Tim White, the idea of cannibalism is as significant to the holistic study of anthropology as the idea of evolution is to the study of creationism. This viewpoint is only one of many related to cannibalism today and is shared by a very small group of individuals. The thought of cannibalism within modern society though comes with so much displeasure to the point that conferences go to the length of entitling presentations such that the notion of one human being consuming another is eluded altogether. An example of this tactic would be the Multidisciplinary Approaches to Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest symposium which outlined

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