Overview
- The mid‑9th century BC burial pit at Gomolava contains 77 people, with more than 60% children and over 70% female.
- Osteological evidence documents deliberate lethal trauma, mainly to the head, with patterns consistent with blows delivered from horseback as well as cuts from bladed weapons.
- Ancient DNA and strontium isotopes indicate the dead were largely unrelated and originated from multiple communities, some over 30 miles away.
- The interment was highly ritualized, including a sacrificed calf, assorted animal joints from distant sources, charcoalified millet and barley, and heavy quern stones placed on bodies.
- The peer‑reviewed study in Nature Human Behaviour interprets the event as organized intergroup violence over land use, notes the settlement’s subsequent abandonment, and leaves the exact motives and perpetrators unresolved.