This Ancient Decapitated Skull is Clearly A Head of Its Time
An international team of researchers has uncovered a 9000-year-old decapitated head in Brazil, with a pair of severed hands across its face.
About nine thousand years ago, in what is now Lapo do Santa, Brazil, someone had a very, very bad day (and it had nothing to do with venomous frogs [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141915-Scientist-Accidentally-Discovers-the-Worlds-First-Venomous-Frog-The-Hard-Way]).
archaeologists [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/anthropology] have long known about the practise of ritual decapitation in the New World. Until recently, the act was thought to have originated in about 1000 B.C. in human-sacrificing cultures of the Andes, on the Western coast of South America. The discovery of a decapitated skull in Brazil, however, may flip that notion on its head. "We won't get fooled again," said unaffiliated researcher, Detective Horatio Caine.
The dig makes for a pretty grisly sight: placed over the face of the severed head are a pair of hands. The right hand is placed over the left side of the skull, fingers pointing up; the left is arranged in the opposite manner.
The gallery below has high res photos from the dig, for all you decapitation super-fans out there:
[gallery=4755]
For slightly less death-related archaeology news, people in Pakistan [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136874-Worlds-Oldest-Gaming-Tokens-Found-in-Turkey-Dated-to-Bronze-Age#&gid=gallery_3012&pid=1] were big tabletop gamers.
Lapo do Santa is a popular spot for archaeologists - evidence suggests it's been habitated for at least 10,000 years, and because it lies within a protected area, remains are relatively undisturbed. The skull was found in a circular pit, covered with limestone cobbles. It is one of at least 26 burial sites dating back the Holocene period.
Meanwhile, a team excavating a similar spot in Mexico announced they've got one foot in the grave.
Source: PLOS One [http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/oldest-case-of-decapitation-in-the-new-world-150923.htm]
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An international team of researchers has uncovered a 9000-year-old decapitated head in Brazil, with a pair of severed hands across its face.
About nine thousand years ago, in what is now Lapo do Santa, Brazil, someone had a very, very bad day (and it had nothing to do with venomous frogs [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141915-Scientist-Accidentally-Discovers-the-Worlds-First-Venomous-Frog-The-Hard-Way]).
archaeologists [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/anthropology] have long known about the practise of ritual decapitation in the New World. Until recently, the act was thought to have originated in about 1000 B.C. in human-sacrificing cultures of the Andes, on the Western coast of South America. The discovery of a decapitated skull in Brazil, however, may flip that notion on its head. "We won't get fooled again," said unaffiliated researcher, Detective Horatio Caine.
The dig makes for a pretty grisly sight: placed over the face of the severed head are a pair of hands. The right hand is placed over the left side of the skull, fingers pointing up; the left is arranged in the opposite manner.
The gallery below has high res photos from the dig, for all you decapitation super-fans out there:
[gallery=4755]
For slightly less death-related archaeology news, people in Pakistan [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136874-Worlds-Oldest-Gaming-Tokens-Found-in-Turkey-Dated-to-Bronze-Age#&gid=gallery_3012&pid=1] were big tabletop gamers.
Lapo do Santa is a popular spot for archaeologists - evidence suggests it's been habitated for at least 10,000 years, and because it lies within a protected area, remains are relatively undisturbed. The skull was found in a circular pit, covered with limestone cobbles. It is one of at least 26 burial sites dating back the Holocene period.
Meanwhile, a team excavating a similar spot in Mexico announced they've got one foot in the grave.
Source: PLOS One [http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/oldest-case-of-decapitation-in-the-new-world-150923.htm]
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