Overview
- A study published Tuesday confirms archaeologists excavated at least 78 Neolithic individuals in a ditch at Vráble, Slovakia, and 77 of those skeletons were missing their skulls.
- The burials come from the Linear Pottery (LBK) settlement occupied about 5250–4950 BCE and were found near the entrance to a settlement that contains outlines of more than 300 former houses.
- Preliminary bone analysis shows careful postmortem removal of skulls rather than clear evidence of violent battlefield decapitation, and the bodies were deposited in seemingly patterned placements.
- Researchers recovered only one intact skull (a child) and found almost no head fragments in the ditch, so DNA, isotope, cut-mark and forensic decomposition studies are now under way to find where the heads went and whether the group shared kinship or nonlocal origins.
- The team urges a regional comparison because similar skull manipulation is known in parts of southeast Europe and southwest Asia, and resolving this case could reshape how archaeologists read Neolithic death rituals and social practices.