Murder most old

Violence, it turns out, was quite an intrinsic part of early human culture. A group of researchers have uncovered what is perhaps the world’s oldest murder. And it occurred around 430,000 years ago. The researchers found that the victim was clubbed twice on the head and then tossed into a deep pit within a cave in what is now Spain.

The skull of the victim is among 28 sets of remains that have been discovered in Spain in what’s known as ‘Sima de los Huesos’ or the ‘Pit of the Bones’. Two years ago, some researchers, after extracting DNA from one of its preserved bones, claimed that the bodies could be of the Neanderthal species.

The current study was conducted by researchers from Madrid’s Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolución y Comportamiento Humano and published in PLoS ONE. The researchers discovered that one of the skulls from the Pit of Bones that they were examining—a young adult’s found in 52 pieces and then put back together—had two fractures on its front. Using modern imaging techniques, they found that the two fractures were almost identical, indicating that both were caused by the same object. They also discovered that each strike was from a slightly different angle.

Write the researchers in the journal: ‘The type of injuries, their location, the strong similarity of the fractures in shape and size, and the different orientations and implied trajectories of the two fractures suggest they were produced with the same object in face-to-face inter- personal conflict. Given that either of the two traumatic events was likely lethal, the presence of multiple blows implies an intention to kill.’

According to the researchers, their findings suggest that ancient people deposited deceased members of their social groups into this pit. ‘The only possible manner by which a deceased individual could have arrived at the SH site is if its cadaver were dropped down the shaft by other hominins,’ they write. ‘This interpretation implies this was a social practice among this group of Middle Pleistocene hominins and may represent the earliest funerary behavior [on human] record.’

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