An amazing finding that has most scientists surprised has happened in Brazil. And what could have scientists so amazed? They found the oldest beheading case in history. The skull of a beheaded man, suspected to have been victim of a religious ritual, is over 9,000 years old, making it the oldest human decapitation case documented in America and possibly the world. Next to the skull, which had its eyes covered, they also discovered two amputated hands.
André Strauss, from Max Plank Institute, in Germany, was responsible for the finding. He and his team were studying a remote cave in Lagoa Santa, in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, when they did their discovery. In 2007, these scientists discovered that this cave served as a burial ground and had dozens of graves of both hunters and gatherers who inhabited the region more than 12,000 years ago.
This most recent find, found about 55 centimeters deeper than the other usual graves, showed that this man had this skull and hands removed. According to the researchers, his jaw and vertebrae show signs of having suffered a cut that would have happened during is beheading.
Most beheaded bodies of the Inca, Nazca, Moche and Wari civilization have been found in the area of the Andes. This fact baffled these archaeologists, because Lagoa Santa is very away from this region and the decapitated man is much older.
These scientists have several hypotheses to explain their find. Doming Salazar Garcia, a Spanish researcher of the Max Planck Institute explains: “Many times these civilizations mutilated their defeated enemies, and their remains became trophies they displayed hung with a rope or on a tall piece of wood”.
Salazar-García says that the fact that the hands and other part of the body where found next to the skull, confirms his theory that it is a way of conveying a religious message, since it does not have burial characteristics. Also, this Spanish researcher said that when extracting collagen from the bones to identify its date of death, using the carbon 14 technique, they concluded he was beheaded with a sharp stone. Other analysis established that the victim was a man in his thirties.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions regarding this strange of the oldest human decapitation case documented in America. Further anthropological analysis will be done to determine and throw some light on how this ancient American civilization lived.
That information may change the history of our ancestor and their way of living. Interesting piece.