(4) Cannibalism, where it has been found amongst extant peoples, or is known to have been formerly practised, was often justified by certain magical or animistic ideas, but sometimes frankly by dietetic taste, or by the satisfaction of revenge or of emphatic triumph over an enemy. Was it an ancient and perhaps general custom? The excavations at Krapina in Croatia disclosed along with remains of the Neanderthal species, which seems to have had a habitation there, those of rhinoceros and cave-bear and of some other kind of Man; and “some of the human bones had been apparently split open: on that slender basis the Krapina men have been suspected of cannibalism.”[21] If the suspicion is valid, the practice existed (say) 50,000 years ago in one species of Man; and perhaps much earlier, if we consider how it was merely an extension of the practice of devouring game to include the slain members of a hostile pack; for as primitive Man, or Lycopithecus, his pre-human forebear, no doubt regarded other animals as upon the same level as himself, so he will have regarded human enemies as upon the same footing with other animals. That true carnivores are not generally cannibals may be put down to their more ancient and perfect adaptation to a predatory life. For them persistent cannibalism would have been too destructive, and for us it belongs to the experimental stage of history; though, of course, even in recent times, under stress of famine, reversion to the practice is not unknown to civilised men.