morning computer othering

Lorenzo Tonda.

Archaeologists have analyzed more than 3,000 human bones and bone fragments from the Early Bronze Age site of Charterhouse Warren, England, concluding that the people were massacred, butchered, and likely partly consumed by enemies as a means to dehumanize them.

Were they killed for food? This is unlikely. There were abundant cattle bones found mixed in with the human ones, suggesting the people at Charterhouse Warren had plenty to eat without needing to resort to cannibalism.

Instead, cannibalism may have been a way to “other” the deceased. By eating their flesh and mixing the bones in with faunal remains, the killers were likening their enemies to animals, thereby dehumanizing them.

Albright’s reign of terror began in October 1988, when 30-year-old sex worker, Rhonda K. Bowie, was found dead with more than 20 stab wounds on her body.

In December 1990, Albright struck again, shooting and killing 33-year-old veteran sex worker Mary Lou Pratt. She was shot in the back of the head with a .44 Magnum and severely beaten.

However, it was what investigators found—or rather, didn’t find—that shocked them: Pratt’s eyes had been meticulously removed with surgical precision.

THE EYEBALL KILLER