Cannibalism & evolution

Cannibalism is a controversial topic. It is routine for particular societies to accuse "barbarians", enemies, or evil mythological figures, of cannibalism. When it comes to the archaeological record some skeptics have claimed that like "sacred objects" too often human remains found in peculiar circumstances are ascribed to human sacrifice or cannibalism. In Did Adam and Eve Have Navels? Martin Gardner lays out the skeptical case for why cannibalism is rare to non-existent, and rather something which emerges from the imaginations of ethnographers and archaeologists, or is rooted in scurrilous insults hurled between ethnic groups which have antagonistic relationships. Since the arguments Gardner lays out were presented it seems that the skeptical case is looking weaker, though controversy remains in specific instances. In the domain of genetics, there is some evidence of natural selection on genetic loci which imply widespread prion diseases in the past. Diseases which are often the outcomes of cannibalism. These sorts of molecular genetic data should perhaps change our perspective as to the imaginative color which archaeologists and paleoanthropologists might add to their inferences from ancient or prehistoric human remains. But the case of cannibalism among the Fore people of Papua New Guinea it is not speculation or a matter of historical or archaeological inference. They were engaging in the practice as late as the 1960s. So it is of interest that a new paper has come out reinforcing the finding that the kuru epidemics might have left a genetic imprint, A Novel Protective Prion Protein Variant that Colocalizes with Kuru Exposure: