San Juan ante Portam Latinam, Spain, 3300 BC: 338 skeletons, 137 adults, 201 under 20s, a third with cranial trauma, 70% of males teens. El Trox: five adults shot in the face. ⚔️💀
San Juan ante Portam Latinam massacre pit (c. 3300 BC) held 338 mostly adolescent victims
Site mentioned
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Key facts
- El Trox cave in Spain contained five adults and four children; the adults were shot in the face at close range with bows, with arrowheads found in their skulls, and the children were beaten to death
- Ancient DNA from one El Trox individual matches gene flow out of Anatolia, and grave goods indicate the victims were farmers, possibly killed over farming rights with local hunter-gatherers
- San Juan ante Portam Latinam, Spain, dates to about 3,300 BC plus or minus a century and holds more than 300 skeletons plus thousands of bone fragments
- Crania indicate 338 individuals: 137 adults and 201 teenagers or younger
- About one third show cranial trauma, under half of them unhealed; 27 individuals including children had unhealed broken bones, and 59 stone arrowheads were recovered
- Trauma frequency exceeds the average for other European Neolithic sites, and unlike them male skeletons are overrepresented, with roughly 70% of identifiable males being adolescents, suggesting the adult fighting force had already been killed
- Osteology shows up to 37% of individuals suffered severe childhood nutritional stress (cribra orbitalia), about double other Neolithic sites in Europe
- Contemporaneous Iberian rock art depicts skirmishes and battles with figures armed with bows, and sometimes executions
Sources
Four cases of fatal arrow-shot injuries from Els Trocs cave ...researchgate.net
Four cases of fatal arrow-shot injuries from Els Trocs cave site. (A1) Fragment of the left parietal bone of individual CET-10, external view.
Tonto Apache Warnps.gov
The troops pushed north into Tonto Basin. Their goal was the rancheria of Delshay, a key chief of the Tonto Apaches. The Skeleton Cave Massacre
Dec. 28, 1872: Skeleton Cave Massacrezinnedproject.org
On Dec. 28, 1872, the Yavapai people's shelter of Skeleton Cave, located in Salt River Canyon, Arizona, was attacked by the U.S. Army.
4000-year-old victim was shot in the back—and survived ...nationalgeographic.com
Each arrowhead found in the cave was likely once embedded in the flesh of the dead people interred there, he says. But this individual did not ...
Bones of Neolithic immigrants killed in massacre found in ...livescience.com
The cave of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, indicated here by an arrow, was the scene of a brutal massacre about 7,300 years ago. (Image ...
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