About 6,200 years ago, 41 people in present-day Croatia were killed and buried in a mass grave, and members of their own community may have killed them, according to a new analysis of the remains.
Adult men and women were among the dead, but the ages in the group ranged from 2 years to 50 years old, and about half of the skeletons belonged to children. Many of the killing blows were the attacks of the skull that landed from behind, and there were no marks on the armbands indicating that the victims were trying to defend themselves against their attackers, scientists reported in a new study.
Genetic analysis showed that about 70% of the deceased were not closely related to other victims, but that all had a common ancestry. Researchers suspect the massacre may have been caused by a sudden population boom or shift in climatic conditions that depleted resources and led to indiscriminate massacres.
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The grave was discovered in 2007 when a man digging a foundation for a garage in a small town in the hills of Potočani, Croatia, uncovered heavy rain in a pit containing dozens of skeletons. Archaeologists at the University of Zagreb happened to be surveying the area and were able to begin investigating the mass grave on the day it was discovered, Mario Novak, lead author of the new study and head of the Laboratory for Evolutionary Anthropology and Bioarcheology, told the Institute of Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia.
The pit is small, about 2 meters in diameter and 1 meter deep, and at least 41 bodies were dumped there without ceremony. Initially, archaeologists thought the remains were modern, from World War II or the Croatian War of Independence in the 1990s, Novak told WordsSideKick. But there were no contemporary objects in the well – only pieces of pottery that looked prehistoric. And when researchers examined the victims’ teeth, they found no dental fillings. Radiocarbon dating of bones, soil and pottery fragments confirmed the age of burial and dates from about 4200 BC
The researchers identified 21 of the victims as children between the ages of 2 years and 17 years old, and 20 as adults between 18 and 50 years old; 21 of the deceased were male and 20 female.
“Just randomly kill”
But how did they finally bury together? For the new study, Novak and his colleagues took a sample DNA analyzed from remains and the bones of 38 individuals. When the researchers examined the bodies, they found that most had at least one traumatic injury to the back of the skull, and that some skulls had as many as four leaks. Mass graves in medieval Europe regularly contained people of all ages and genders who lived before the Black Death, but the victims in the Potočani well died by force, not from infectious diseases, Novak explained.
“The only plausible scenario was a massacre,” he said.
The distribution of men and women, as well as adults and children, was approximately equal and there were no wounds to their limbs or faces, and therefore they were probably not killed during a fight. It is unknown if the victims were confined or otherwise unable to defend themselves – “if someone attacks you with a club or a sword, you raise your forearm reflexively to protect your head,” which at least some remnants with cuts would leave on the humerus, Novak said. “But we saw no facial injuries, nor any defensive injuries.”
Genetic data showed that only 11 of the victims were close relatives, so the slaughter was not directed at a specific family group. Nor did it look like a planned discriminatory assassination in which enemies tended to kill older men while capturing women.
“In this case, it was just random killing, without any worries about sex and age,” Novak said.
A Neolithic death pit recently described in Spain also contains a jumble of skeletons – male and female, young and old. DNA has shown that the victims recently arrived in the region, and that they may have been slaughtered by locals protecting their area, Live Science previously reported. But genetic evidence from the site in Potočani indicated that although most of the dead were not closely related, they shared common ancestry. This means that they were not newcomers; they come rather from a local population that has been homogeneous and stable, ‘so that we can rule out that this massacre is accompanied by the influx of new immigrants,’ Novak said.
The most likely explanation is one that archaeologists and climatologists have suggested for other ancient slaughter areas in Germany and Austria, dating to about 5,000 years ago, in which adults and children were also killed indiscriminately and thrown into shallow mass graves. In those scenarios, long lasting climate change what caused floods or droughts – perhaps combined with an unexpected upsurge in the population – could have led to quarrels over precious resources.
And in Potočani, one of the battles became deadly.
“By studying such ancient massacres, we can try to get a glimpse into the psychology of these people, and perhaps try to prevent similar events today,” Novak said. “We have at least evidence of old massacres dating back to 10,000 years ago. Today we also have modern massacres. The only thing that has changed is that we now have more efficient means and weapons to do such things. But I think neither human nature nor human psychology has changed much. ‘
The findings were published online in the journal on March 10. PLOS Een.
Originally published on Live Science.