What a 7,000-year-old mass grave in Europe tells us about the history of violence

Researchers say they have found the bones of more than 20 children and adults (mostly men) at a prehistoric mass grave site in Germany. And the remains show evidence of violence — arrow injuries and indications of blunt force.

"On one hand you are curious about finding out more about this, but also shocked to see what people can do to each other," Christian Meyer, an archaeologist from the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, told the Guardian newspaper.

Meyer is among the authors of a study about the massacre site at Schoeneck-Kilianstaedten.
www.washingtonpost.com... ence/

Torture mass killings including men women and children could well be from a headline today, for the more things change the more they remained the same

Intriguingly, the sites have all been dated toward the end of the LBK's 600-year presence, suggesting that members of this culture — which is thought to have developed in what is now Hungary and spread along the Danube River — may have turned on each other.

This is even more disturbing imo for it seemed that it was not done to or from some invading new group but one's own.

a reply to: Spider879

Probably rival families.

originally posted by: Wide-Eyes
a reply to: Spider879

Probably rival families.

Yeah but to the point of torture?? not saying family members can't or wouldn't go the distance but my temporal bias is showing as I imagined that folks back then would just kill out of need but not torture especially one's relations.

a reply to: Spider879

Zombies!!! I knew it!

a reply to: Spider879

Sadly people have been killing people in varying numbers since they became people . But one thing i found interesting was the broken lower limbs . Cannibalism perhaps . If you want to keep your long pig fresh and unable to run away i cant think of a better way .

if it was family rivalry I could see it.

If someone ever hurt one of my family members, bad enough.... and I could take the "law" Into my own hands, you bet I would go to extreme lengths to make the other family pay. Even torture. If someone hurt my family, I would destroy their family.

So I could see that.

It could be anything causing it. In family rivalry. Intertribal conflict. Maybe they got into a batch of bad grain and went temporarily insane from a psychadelic toxin. Who knows.

point is...this is why when i see people talking about humans "evolving into a higher state" or some other such nonsense, I cringe. Humans are humans. Then and now And we tend to be rather violent towards each other.

a reply to: Spider879

...At all three sites, the victims and the perpetrators appeared to have been from the Linearbandkeramik — or LBK — culture, a farming people who arrived in central Europe about 5,500 B.C...

...In addition to the blunt force and arrow injuries found on the bones, crews working at the Stone Age site near Frankfurt found "intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs," according to the study...

examine the evidence.... a large group of boys and men, put in a mass grave with broken legs, arrow wounds, skulls cracked...

this was not about tribal groups, as the population of the grave was male specific, no mommas or sisters in the mix,
the effort was to do away with future warriors & the male blood lines of those villages. for possibly slavery reasons, or to erase that lineage of people forever- conquer and pacify the lands... or perhaps for superstition/pagan/art-of-war reasons from the far east Orient

a reply to: Spider879

This is a fascinating find, in my opinion. I was reading this the other day (honestly can't remember if it was a news or science site) and they (researchers) were saying they have found evidence of trading (flints, etc) up to the boundary between 2 separate camps but no evidence of trading over the boundary. So whilst they were obviously perfectly aware of each other, they don't seem to have had much interaction.

And then something happens...........and it turns into Neolithic Reservoir Dogs. I wonder what caused this deterioration between them? Around 8000 BCE the Laurentide Ice Sheet disappeared and caused sudden global cooling but that only lasted around 150 years - this is around 1000 years later. There is evidence of copper smelting around 7500 BCE in Plocnik (Serbia) and the wheel was invented in a similar (ish) time - perhaps this is all down to Proto Roving War Bands?

a reply to: Spider879

"It was either torture or mutilation. We can't say for sure whether the victims were still alive,"

Really? I can say a mass grave site throwing bodies into probably wouldn't break any limbs in the process.....We always go toward eating each other or torture, but are we really sure either one took place here?

Yes a mass grave with arrows in the limbs were found but why does the human mind always travel down the worst road? Guess more thinking out loud than saying one way or another....Just a question

Is it possible the legs of the victims were broken after they were dead?
People will do odd things to keep the dead from rising up- perhaps this was their method of keeping them from being chased down by the spirits of the dead.

I say the same thing about Native American cultures; namely that every sort of violence and torture were used against their enemies. Not just the Mesoamerican cultures like the Aztecs but the Iroquois and Huron would torture victims tied to a stake and burn them alive. Cruelty is just part of warfare and cultural expression anywhere you go in the world it seems. The idea of the noble and "peaceful" savage is part of myth the romanticized the newly colonized parts of the world taken by Europeans.

a reply to: Spider879

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that people can face incredible violence. Not from the majority of people; just from that small minority that lives amongst us and sees violence as a useful instrument. In some ways, I think societies agree to covenants of behaviour to limit the influence of the psychos and killers. We have to keep a lid on them fo rthe safety of everyone else.

I think the wholesale slaughtering and torturing that occurred in Rwanda should haunt every society on Earth from now until the end of time. It's evidence that we can all be drawn into a darkness that knows no boundaries.

"intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs,"

This also happened in Rwanda. They broke legs and severed tendons so the victims couldn't escape in the night...the attackers were tired and wanted to sleep. Not saying this is what happened, just pointing out a similar scenario.

Causes? I wonder if there was any famine? Maybe a blight on the staple foods? Similar famines in America led to Native American tribes slaughtering their neighbours for resources.

On the other hand, is 'more than 20 bodies' really evidence of massacres or even a comment on the norms of society in Germany back then? Lack of female remains makes a good case for a power grab against a neighbouring family or tribe. That level of violence (smashed teeth, crushed craniums) could have been a strong message to competitors too.

originally posted by: Flavian
a reply to: Spider879

and it turns into Neolithic Reservoir Dogs.

a reply to: Marduk

Brilliant. I have to say that is the best response to a comment i think i have ever had!

originally posted by: Flavian
a reply to: Marduk

Brilliant. I have to say that is the best response to a comment i think i have ever had!

Your Neolithic reservoir dogs comment made me laugh out loud
thanks

To everyone else, consider, the bodies were in a mass grave, in a time when individual burial was commonplace, so they weren't buried by their kin and the fact that they were buried at all speaks to the fact that whoever buried them didn't want them rotting out in the sunshine, because they valued the land they were killed on. So they were either a tribe of interlopers, or a community killed by another community expanding into their area. The broken legs would indicate to me, that the killers were saying "no more travel for you" in a spiritual sense, because you don't send a message to living people by burying the evidence.

a reply to: Marduk

The broken legs would indicate to me, that the killers were saying "no more travel for you" in a spiritual sense, because you don't send a message to living people by burying the evidence.

That's a smart comment. The message I was suggesting would be to other groups. Severe violence has that effect and bad news travels.

For example, Genghis Khan's use of extreme violence had less relevance to the dead than it did in psychologically screwing everyone else...including his own.

a reply to: Spider879

We can speculate all day long, but violence is inherent in our genetic makeup.

Sadly.


(On the lighter side, perhaps Walmart was having a Black Friday sale. . . . )

a reply to: beezzer

LOL! I just watched a black Friday fight compilation video before opening this page.
You a mind reader or something Beez?