Was this 9,000-year-old American decapitated out of kindness?
With our history books populated with the likes of Marie Antoinette, Sir Walter Raleigh, and聽Wildhans von Breitenlandenberg, it's聽hard for us to to think of beheading as anything other than a punishment.
But a 9,000-year-old American skull might reveal a different perspective.
This once-young man was likely the subject of . Archeologists found the skull in an ancient burial site in Brazil, presenting what might be the earliest known case of decapitation in the Americas. The researchers discuss their findings in a paper published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.
鈥淲e would normally see decapitation as something bad, something that鈥檚 done as a punitive act or to assure submission of others,鈥� says Andr茅 Strauss,聽study lead author and archeologist with the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. He explains that this perspective, which he calls a Western perspective, assumes that decapitation cannot be good.
But that may not be the case.聽
Although the skull displays marks where the head was cut from the body, the specimen, dubbed Burial 26, provides evidence to counter theories that the deceased was being punished. Burial 26 was likely kin to the local community and was not strung up as a trophy.
There鈥檚 more. The skull was carefully set in its resting place with some company: Burial 26鈥檚 hands.
Like the skull, the hands had not been carelessly tossed into a pit. Instead, they cover the man鈥檚 face in a seemingly deliberate way.
He wasn鈥檛 protecting his face from attack. One of the severed hands rested over each side of his face. The left hand covered his right side of his face, with fingers pointing up and the right hand pointed down as it covered the left side of his face.聽
鈥淭his suggests to us that this burial had an important visual component. This was supposed to be seen by others of the community,鈥� says Mr. Strauss.聽 鈥淲e believe that this is also compatible with this scenario for rituals that was surrounding this decapitation. It was intended to be seen, it was careful.鈥�
Perhaps Burial 26 was displayed for relatives to honor their dead brother, says Strauss. But, he cannot guess why. 鈥淎rcheologists, we can reconstruct behavior, but we cannot reconstruct mental state. I don鈥檛 ever know what those guys were thinking.鈥�
The intriguing hand placement wasn鈥檛 the only behavioral clue for the archeologists.
Before this discovery, dominant theories about decapitation included punishment or a display of power in the form of trophy heads.聽
But the young man鈥檚 skull showed no signs of display. 鈥淎 trophy head usually has drill holes where you put something to carry the thing,鈥� says Strauss. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 a trophy head, you want to carry it around.鈥�
Furthermore, Burial 26 appeared to be related to the other individuals found at the dig site. The researchers examined kinship in two ways.
Without DNA to analyze, the scientists used cranial measurements to infer genetic similarities. According to previously established standards, Burial 26 was similar enough to his skeleton companions to suggest they were of the same community.
The scientists also employed strontium analysis to compare Burial 26鈥檚 isotopic signature to those in neighboring graves. 鈥淭his allows you to figure out where someone had their childhood,鈥� Strauss聽says. For example, 鈥淚f you grow up in Texas, you have a different strontium signature than if you grow up in New York.鈥澛�
Again, the scientists found a match.
Burial 26 was one of 37 individuals found at the Brazilian site called Lapa do Santo. Of those, at least nine show similar mortuary processes, says Strauss. The archeologists believe that these bodies were all buried by the same people.聽
The skeletons had all been similarly altered. In one, the legs were cut. Another鈥檚 teeth had been pulled out. One set of bones had even been burned.聽
鈥淲hat鈥檚 linking all these burials is the fact that they were reducing the corpse,鈥� Strauss聽says. He suggests that that reduction was significant in the funeral rituals of those people.
鈥淛ust as when someone is dying now in society, there are several things that must be done,鈥� as mortuary rituals, says Strauss. 鈥�10,000 years ago, in East-Central Brazil, what had to be done was to reduce the body to proceed with the funerary rituals.鈥�
Previously scientists thought that there were no ceremonies around death in this community. 鈥淭hey had this wrong idea that the highly mobile hunter-gathers would just get rid of the rotten corpse and nothing more sophisticated than that,鈥� says Strauss. In this scenario, these people dug simple, shallow graves and moved on.
But, 鈥渢hose groups were way more sophisticated, culturally speaking, than we expected,鈥� he says.
鈥淚n East-Central Brazil 10,000 years ago there were some quite sophisticated hunter-gathers living here for about 3,000 years and they were doing sophisticated elaborate things such as these funerary rituals,鈥� says Strauss. And, he adds, 鈥淲e should give them more credit.鈥�
Burial 26 emerges from continued work at the Lapa do Santo site by a team of experts, led by Strauss. The team hopes to find more clues into the lives and practices of these ancient people, including DNA.聽
