14 DAY TRIAL // In 2006, a mass grave dating back to around 7,000 years ago was discovered in present-day Germany. Archaeologists exploring the site have since recovered and studied the remains of 26 people.
The skeletal remains, belonging to both adults and children, are described in a study published this Tuesday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As it turns out, most of the people pulled from this Neolithic mass grave in Germany died a most horrific death. Not only were they murdered but, judging by the marks left on their bones, they were tortured and their bodies were mutilated.
Archaeologists suspect that they were killed in a conflict that broke out between communities then populating the region. This would explain why the remains are mostly male.
“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,” University of Basel researchers explain in a report detailing their findings.
If this is indeed the case, it would mean that fights in Neolithic Europe were more bloody and brutal than previously assumed. Thus, although other mass graves have been found in the region, such violence has never before been documented.
The victims had their legs broken, their skulls smashed
In their study, archaeologists at the University of Basel and their colleagues at the University of Mainz detail that, of the people so far pulled from this ancient mass grave in Germany, many show signs of arrow injuries.
They also appear to have had their legs broken and their skulls smashed by their attackers. Furthermore, they sustained severe trauma to their faces. Evidence indicates that this was done to torture and mutilate them. Even more shocking, some were mutilated while still alive.
“The findings show that victims were murdered and deliberately mutilated,” researchers explain. “Their results show that the prehistoric attackers used unprecedented violence against their victims,” they go on to detail.
Factoring in previous evidence of massacres in Neolithic Europe, such as the other mass graves found in Germany in recent years, scientists believe that, in those days, brutal conflicts were quite common and that, more often than not, they resulted in the annihilation of entire communities.
