The absence of corroborating evidence does not rule out cannibalism, but it means that the evidence for it rests entirely on the interpretation of the skull evidence, which is also consistent with the skull preparation interpretation.

Cannibalism in prehistoric Europe is a documented phenomenon, attested by both physical evidence and, for later periods, textual sources.

Whether it occurred in Iron Age Scotland is not something the Loch Borralie evidence alone can establish.

The researchers are right to raise the possibility while declining to endorse it as the most likely explanation.

The possibility that the treatment of Individual 1’s remains reflects a specific response to the circumstances of her death — that she died in a particular way, or that her death was understood as carrying a particular meaning within the community, that required or motivated special treatment of her body — is not extensively discussed in the published paper but is worth noting as a plausible interpretive frame.

In many cultural contexts, unusual deaths are treated differently from ordinary ones, and the specific way in which death occurs can determine the specific ritual handling of the body.