How this ancient, unwanted human skull ended up in such a strange place

Archaeologists may have finally figured out how a 5,300-year-old skull ended up on the rim of a deep vertical cave shaft in northern Italy.

The jawless skull was discovered in 2015 during exploration work in a natural gypsum cave in northern Italy. It was found near the top of a vertical shaft, about 40 feet (12 meters) below a winding cave complex and 85 feet (26 meters) below ground level.

That a skull was in such a strange and isolated place was a total surprise, to say the least. No other human remains have been found in the immediate vicinity, nor any archaeological evidence. The location of the upturned skull – a natural cavity inside the well – is only accessible with special climbing equipment, and not a place that ancient people could easily have reached.

In 2017, archaeologists returned to the cave, known as Marcel Loubens, to document and recover the skull. New search published today in PLOS One provides a detailed analysis of the fossil, as well as a possible explanation for how it ended up in such an unlikely location. The document was edited by archaeologist Maria Giovanna Belcastro from the University of Bologna in Italy.

As the authors speculate, the skull was likely transported to the plateau by a series of natural geological processes, including the opening of sinkholes, landslides and water runoff. The 5,300-year-old fossil, it seems, passed through this cave system on its own.

For the study, the researchers “focused on studying the circumstances surrounding this individual’s death, as the skull is showing signs of certain lesions that appear to be the result of [post-death] manipulation probably performed to remove soft tissue. “

This is because the skull, known as the Marcel Loubens skull, or MLC for short, shows scratches and cut marks that correspond to the ablation of the flesh, which was probably performed as part of a ritual of death, according to the authors. It sounds strange, but stripping the dead was a relatively common prehistoric practice (even among Neanderthals), both in this part of the world and elsewhere.

As the anthropologist Alessia Zielo of the University of Padua explained in a 2018 paper, there were very good reasons for this practice:

In the cultures of the past, the head was believed to be the seat of the soul, which contained the life force and possessed extraordinary qualities. It was also the profound symbol of a power closely linked to the concepts of life, death and fertility. In addition, after death, the handling of the skulls showed that the physical remains of the deceased continued to play an important role in the community life to which [they] belonged.

The fact that the skull was found in a cave is no surprise, however. The use of these Italian caves as “natural cavities,” in the words of the researchers, was common during the first half of the 3rd millennium BCE, as evidenced by earlier archaeological finds. Dead people were brought inside these caves and buried, which is probably the case here. Indeed, radiocarbon dating of the skull dated it to between 3630 and 3380 BCE, placing it in this period, known as the Italian Eneolithic period, also known as the Copper Age.

For the context, Ötzi the Ice Man – this famous natural mummy found encrusted in the ice – lived between 3400 and 3100 BCE. Ötzi died in the Ötztal Alps, on the border between Austria and Italy, and about 345 km north of the Marcel Loubens cave.

The skull, with several teeth still attached, was found in remarkably good shape, allowing for detailed analysis. Belcastro and his colleagues used microscopes and a scanner to study the fossil, in addition to analyzing a detailed 3D replica.

Detailed measurements of the skull were crossed with a forensic database, suggesting it belonged to a woman who died between the ages of 24 and 35. The lesions probably occurred after death, as no signs of healing were detected. Ocher was also detected, which may have something to do with the funeral ritual.

Other evidence suggests that this woman was not particularly healthy. She suffered from chronic anemia, such as iron or vitamin B deficiency. She probably endured prolonged metabolic stress as a child and appears to have had an endocrine disorder, as revealed by a dental scan. Indeed, the transition to Neolithic lifestyles was not only fun and amusing; According to the article, new diets (based on agriculture), new living conditions and denser lifestyles resulted in decreased health and increased exposure to unsanitary conditions, pathogens and parasites. .

The lesions on the skull do not appear to have been caused by animal behaviors, such as biting, gnawing or scratching. In addition, the detection of “irregularly thick calcite scabs” on the MLC fossil suggests that the skull began to move soon after the woman was put to rest, and by natural processes.

By performing a geological examination of the cave system and studying the skull, scientists have come up with a plausible explanation for the skull’s odd location.

Here’s the explanation: Shortly after the woman was put to rest, her skull came off and rolled away. Water and mud began to rush through the cave, carrying the skull lower down the slope of a chasm and into a deeper cave. The ongoing sinkhole activity has carved the cave into its current form, landing the skull in its strange resting place.

The Marcel Loubens cave, it should be noted, is located in a depression in the region known locally as “Dolina dell’Inferno”, which literally translates to “Hell’s Sinkhole”. This sinkhole activity and the ongoing geological processes transported the skull to such a strange place seems entirely reasonable.

We’ll probably never know the exact story of how this skull ended up inside this deep cave well, but this study offers some remarkable findings based on a single skull found completely outside of a archaeological context. Archaeologists, as this article shows, are very adept at working with very little. In a way, that’s kind of what they do.