Cave paintings dated back to 25,000 or so years ago have been found in many French and Spanish caves. A common motif among these paintings are handprints and silhouettes of hands, and a concerning number of them have missing fingers or parts of fingers. One might assume that these hands fell prey to injury, frostbite, or infection, but a new science paper posits that these fingers may have been ritually removed as a religious practice.
Archaeologist Mark Collard of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver says finger removal has been a part of some cultures all around the world for thousands of years. Self-mutilation as a sacrifice to appease a deity takes many forms, and would explain the inordinate number of missing digits among cave painters. This theory has received some pushback, as missing fingers would certainly limit a prehistoric person's ability to manage a harsh environment. Read about the missing fingers and the idea of their deliberate removal at The Guardian. -via Strange Company