Fanny Chena, Philippe Lefranc / Inrap
Air views of two stone pits full of human skeletons excavated in France
In a series of “Victory” celebrations, held over 6,000 years ago in northeastern France, a group of warriors who defended its territory cut the left arms of the won enemies and buried them in pits.
At a time when war was widespread and invaders advanced to the northeast of France from the region around Paris, the captured enemies were tortured, mutilated and buried in pits, discovered a new study.
In the course of the study, whose results were presented in a published on Wednesday Science Advancesthe investigators analyzed the remains of 82 people buried in pits in northeastern France, between 4300 and 4150 BC
According to the authors of the study, some of the bodies They were mutilatedwith left arms and dismembered hands, and the unmarked bodies were buried in Fdifferent ossas.
“The lower limbs were fractured to prevent victims from runningthe whole body has brute force trauma and, moreover, in some skeletons there are brands – piercing holes – which may indicate that the bodies have been placed in a public exhibition structure after being tortured and killed, ”he explained Teresa Fernández-CrespoOsteoarcheologist at the University of Valladolid, in Spain, and co -author of the study, to.
To investigate whether different funeral treatments reflected the origin of people, the investigators analyzed chemical signatures of the teeth and bones, which provided clues about where they had grown and the type of food they consumed.
Mutilated people They came from outside the region. Chemical signatures also suggested that this group consumed foods from different zones, which indicates that moved frequentlynotice the researchers in the study.
Chemical analysis has shown that Unless individuals were places – Which may mean that died to defend their territory, suggest the investigators.
Some of the invaders will have been captured by the defenders and their left arms or hands cut as “trophies”in one of the first documented cases of Military Victory celebrations in prehistoric Europe.
“We thought they were brutalized in the context of triumph rituals or victory celebrations that followed one or more battles, ”says Fernández-C RESPOND.
The pits were in the middle of a settlement, which clearly suggests that the act it was a public theater of violence, intended to dehumanize the captive enemies before the whole community.
A TIME OF CONFLICT
There is also Other evidence of conflict widespread in this region between 4500 and 4000 AC
Second Detlef GronenbornProfessor of Archeology at Leibniz Center for Archaeology, Germany, who was not part of the investigation team, the “period in question corresponds to a phase of great instability throughout Europe And it is linked to a time of strong climate volatility, a period of crisis at the continental level, culminating around 4100 BC ”.
Interruptions in the occupation of archaeological sites suggest “sudden and high mobility, due to General increase in war intensity”Says Gronenborn.“ The whole period is characterized by a population pressure from southern France, which may have brought instability and intensification of conflicts following these migrations. ”
Linda Fibigerosteoarcheologist at the University of Edinburgh, which was not part of the team, says this is “an exciting discoverywell conducted and carefully interpreted, which provides important information on the diversity of the practices of violence in neolithic. ”
This was a time of war, in which communities in the region lived in fortified settlements; Skeletons often reveal signs of violence.
“The wounds caused in neolithic battles They usually aimed at the head And much less often, other parts of the body, ”says Fernández-Cresp.
But these pits in France reveal “an intensity of violence on the unprecedented body, which can only be understood in a context of torturemutilation and dehumanization of the victim. ”These brutal attacks may have been performed as revengeconclude the authors of the study.
