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Ancient Cannibals Didn't Turn To Cannibalism Just For the Calories, Study Suggests (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: A new, slightly morbid study based on the calorie counts of average humans suggests that man-eating was mostly ritualistic, not dietary, in nature among hominins including Homo erectus, H. antecessor, Neandertals, and early modern humans. On average, an adult male human contains 125,822 calories of fat and protein, enough to meet the 1-day dietary requirements of more than 60 people. The numbers represent a lower limit, as Neandertals and other extinct hominins likely had more muscle mass than modern humans. Still, when compared with other animals widely available to ancient man like mammoths (3,600,000 calories), wooly rhinoceroses (1,260,000 calories), and aurochs (979,200 calories), it hardly seems worthwhile to hunt hominins that are just as wily and dangerous as the hunters, the researchers conclude. Some instances of cannibalism from nine Paleolithic sites, which date from 936,000 to 14,700 years ago, might be chalked up to starvation or not wanting to waste a perfectly good body that died from natural causes.
Yeahhh..... I'm sure the homosapiens compared the calories betweens species before hunting.
More seriously though, I find that this studies goes wayyyy to far in it's analysis of the situation. In my mind, for the decision of the prey to hunt, the quantity of food per individual fall pretty low in the decision process.
What's the season? How easy it is to hunt and what are the odd of success? How much experience we have hunting that prey? How far from the colony the prey is? How dangerous it is to hunt that prey? Is there additional benefit to hunt that prey (are they challenging our territory? Can I impress the village if I hunt this?)
Elok
This is straightforward if you fully consider the consequences of hunting other humans.
Other humans most likely live in tribes just like you. By hunting one of them, you are declaring war on the entire tribe, who have good reason to fear that they are next. So they will fight very viciously against you. You may win in the end, but likely not without casualties. Even in the best case, you'll have to constantly watch your back rather than doing productive things. All this for the calories from a single person.
This is a question that comes up in utilitarian theory. It's frequently asked, shouldn't utilitarianism allow you to find a lonely old woman, and kill her in order to save the lives of ten people awaiting organ transplants? In the short term, this might save lives and increase overall human happiness. But in the long term, every slightly-vulnerable person would wonder that they are next. This would cause an overall decrease in human happiness.