Python May Have Been on the Neolithic Menu in Southern China

NANNING, CHINA—According to a Xinhua report, snake bones have been found among mammal remains at a Neolithic site in the Zuojiang River Basin in southern China. The snake is estimated to have been more than 15 feet long and belonged to the species Python bivittatus, or Burmese python. Yang Qingping of the Guangxi Institute of Cultural Relic Protection and Archaeology said that most of the recovered bones bear signs of butchering and possible burn marks. The snake, he added, is thought to have been hunted for food. To read about a snake eaten by a hunter-gatherer in what is now Texas some 1,500 years ago, go to "Snake Snack."