Archaeologists are scratching their heads over the bizarre and macabre discovery of Stone Age skulls in Italy, according to a study published last month in the European Journal of Archaeology.
At a Neolithic dig site in Puglia, Italy, scientists discovered at least 15 human skulls, a total of 400 bone fragments, most of them belonging to males. The region was known in prehistoric days as Masseria Candelaro, a tiny village which was surrounded by moats. The remains were found in a mound, but it doesn’t appear to have been an official burial site. Radiocarbon dating revealed the skulls belonged to Neolithic humans across three hundred years, dating from 5618 to 5335 B.C.
Though many of the skulls were cracked or shattered, experts do not believe they met violent ends. Lead author Jess Thompson, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge, contends the heads were “regularly handled” as part of an ancient ancestral burial ritual.
The skulls were discovered within an area Masseria Candelaro’s inhabitants referred to as Structure Q, which was a sunken area of the village in which domestic and ceremonial artifacts were stored. The bones were discovered in one of the structure’s upper tiers, covered with a light dusting of dirt, which suggests the bones were dumped there rather than officially buried. Structure Q was also not a designated burial site, adding further mystery to the discovery.
Instead, Thompson believes the heads were those of enemies collected as trophies, which explains their unceremonious abandonment. It could have been a way of “decommissioning” the fallen enemy, removing their physical body from the visible world. Thompson believes there’s a possibility the set-up was some sort of exhibit, but he can’t be sure because “we didn’t find any modifications suggesting they were suspended or attached to anything.”
Thompson and his team are still working to determine the exact meaning of the skulls’ placement. “We certainly think that human bone had a specific kind of meaning, and perhaps was understood to be an efficacious or potent substance, given the regularity with which it was interacted with,” Thompson told Live Science.
