Severe injuries inflicted either shortly before or after death: Cranial
injury on a child between
3 to 5 years of age (Fig. PNAS, University of Basel)
(August 18, 2015) Violent
conflicts in Neolithic Europe were held more brutally than has been known so
far. This emerges from a recent anthropological analysis of the roughly
7000-year-old mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten by researcher of the
Universities of Basel and Mainz. The findings, published in the journal PNAS,
show that victims were murdered and deliberately mutilated.
It was during the time when Europeans first began to farm. To what degree conflicts
and wars featured in the early Neolithic (5600 to 4900 B.C.), and especially in
the so-called Linear Pottery culture (in German, Linearbandkeramik, LBK), is a
disputed theme in research. It is particularly unclear whether social tensions
were responsible for the termination of this era. So far two mass graves from
this period were known to stem from armed conflicts (Talheim, Germany, and
Asparn/Schletz, Austria).
Shin fracture (Fig. PNAS, University of Basel)
Researcher from the Universities of Basel and Mainz now
report new findings after analyzing the human remains of the mass grave of
Schöneck-Kilianstädten (Germany), a massacre site discovered in 2006. Their
results show that the prehistoric attackers used unprecedented violence against
their victims. The researchers examined and analyzed the bones and skeletons of
at least 26, mainly male, adults and children – most of them exhibiting severe
injuries.
Cranial injury on an 8-year-old child (Fig. PNAS, University of Basel)
Torture and
mutilation
Besides various types of (bone) injuries caused by arrows,
they also found many cases of massive damage to the head, face and teeth, some
inflicted on the victims shorty before or after their death. In addition, the
attackers systematically broke their victims’ legs, pointing to torture and
deliberate mutilation. Only few female remains were found, which further
indicates that women were not actively involved in the fighting and that they
were possibly abducted by the attackers.