Posted on 08/18/2015 6:16:15 AM PDT by ETL
BERLIN (AP) Scientists say they have found rare evidence of a prehistoric massacre in Europe after discovering a 7,000-year-old mass grave with skeletal remains from some of the continent's first farmers bearing terrible wounds.
Archaeologists who painstakingly examined the bones of some 26 men, women and children buried in the Stone Age grave site at Schoeneck-Kilianstaedten, near Frankfurt, say they found blunt force marks to the head, arrow wounds and deliberate efforts to smash at least half of the victims' shins either to stop them from running away or as a grim message to survivors.
[snip]
"What is particularly interesting is the level of violence. Not just the suppression of a rival community if that is what it was but the egregious and systematic breaking of the lower legs," said Scarre. "It suggests the use of terror tactics as part of this inter-community violence."
Meyer, an anthropologist at the University of Mainz, Germany, said nobody can say for sure what prompted the killings so long after the fact. But it's possible to put forward theories, based on what's known about the LBK culture and the conditions they faced. For example, the end of LBK culture coincided with a period of climate change.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
It was common in medieval and earlier warfare, with blunt and edged weapons, to feint as if aiming for the head and then strike at the lower legs, and vice versa. This might explain the excess of injuries to these areas. The presence of arrow wounds in addition doesn’t really fit with their claim?
You mean breaking knee caps didn’t get invented in Chicago???? :)
Oh....”climate change” was the culprit.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3326020/posts?page=14#14
:)
Thanks ETL. Bloodthirsty hunter-gatherers killing sodbusters, figures. ;')
It’s clear that we haven’t changed much. Every piece of evidence ever found confirms our complicated nature and the struggle between good and evil.
“Climate change done it.”
I’m not so sure on that.
/snip:
The attackers, however, spared some members of the group, with victims skewed toward young children, adult men and older women.
“It’s likely that the young women, who are missing in the grave, were kidnapped by the attackers,” said Meyer.
/end snip.
Sounds to me like it was a case of some of the more dumbarse of the communities doing that “one child per family” thing, which, of course, got skewed toward male children, and then had to go raiding for wives for those sons when they grew up.
In archeology learning, are there actual classes in making crap up? Or is that an OJT thing?
Or, were the farmers starting to fight over land as the climate warmed and agriculture became widespread? Global warming, bad, bad, bad.
Excellent questions. Don’t know.
“The LBK population had expanded considerably, and this increases the potential for conflict,” said Meyer. “Also, the LBK were farmers, they settled. So unlike hunter gatherers, who could move away to avoid conflict, these people couldn’t just escape. Add to this the fact that there may have been a period of drought that constrained resources, causing conflicts to erupt.”
Not always between good and evil. In many cases it’s evil vs more evil.
that’s funny :)
my gods! is his finger on the rock trigger???????
yes, and sticks!
Hey, it was prosperous enough for a lot of people to put up with the weather . . .
>> Bloodthirsty hunter-gatherers killing sodbusters, <<
It’s a story as old as TV westerns.
Yeah, that’s where I culled it from, pardner.
Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History by William Ryan Walter Pitman hardcover |
Yes, when a new lion takes over the pride, he kills all the little ones. Not nursing puts them in egg production.
Bush’s fault.
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