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The two women, who have shared a single grave in the central Rhône Valley since their deaths some 6,000 years ago, strangled themselves to death in the belief that their sacrifice would bring prosperity to their farming community. There is a possibility that the
If so, their brutal murders may not be unique, but may represent a practice that echoed throughout Europe for thousands of years, beginning in the Stone Age.
A research team led by anthropologist Eric Coulbezy of France’s Paul Sabatier University, who excavated the site in the 1980s, found that 20 burial remains from 14 excavation sites had similar signs that could be interpreted as ritual sacrifice. reported.
The difference between impulsive violence and cultural acts of supernatural bartering is far from clear-cut, and archaeologists must sift through subtle differences in burial location, tomb structure, and surrounding artifacts for clues.
Even so, the story is at best interpreted through a modern lens. Most researchers believe that ritual murder is primarily an example of what is known as “vassal sacrifice,” in which slaves, wives, and other family members are killed to accompany privileged members of the community into the afterlife. I tend to think that.
But not all bones tell the same tragic story. Although supporting evidence is scant, graves found near grindstones and livestock remains that were shattered to bring good fortune may contain victims chosen to attract favor for a bumper harvest. There is a suspicion that
In the case of two women discovered in Pit 69 of an archaeological excavation site near the French commune of Saint-Paul-Trois-Château, the position of the bodies with a third woman buried next to them raises questions It was enough. .
The third woman lay in full view, but the two dead women lay out of sight, below the edge of the hole. One was placed on her back, and the whetstone fragment was now resting on top of her skull. The other was face down, her legs suspiciously bent.
Rewinding years of decomposition and post-mortem movement, it appeared that the grindstone had been wedged between the body and the protrusion of the pit.
Such deviations in burial position and style invite all sorts of suggestions, but perhaps the possibility that one, if not both, of the women were still alive when they were placed in place. There is nothing more terrifying than that – the neck and limbs were tied, the chest was compressed and the body was twisted to bring about death from suffocation.
This is not the first time researchers have considered whether people died in such a horrible way during the Stone Age. Mesolithic rock art adorning the walls of the Addaura cave in southern Italy depicts human bodies contorted and restrained in a manner similar to this method of self-strangulation.
“The fact that the woman was encumbered by the overhang of a grindstone or storage pit, and the possibility of a cord connecting her neck and ankles, supports the hypothesis that the deposits were deposited while she was still alive.” write the researchers.
She may have had her legs tied to her neck with a ligature (possibly a rope or something similar) and slowly strangled herself to death.
Although the premise is murky, the tomb itself provides some additional clues.
Although it is shaped similar to a hole commonly used to store items for easy access within a dwelling, this hole does not have any of the usual signs of being used for this purpose. did. It was lined with straw, contained no spilled seeds, and lacked the typical charring that would indicate disinfection, suggesting that the resemblance to a storage pit is superficial at best. it was done.
The research team searched further afield for similar occupations in the Rhône Plain, where they found relatively deviant burial practices, and found nine men at 14 different sites dating back to 5400 BC in what is now the Czech Republic. Seven women and four children were identified. More than a dozen bodies were found in a pit designed to resemble some kind of food storage.
“In the 10 sites where the broader archaeological context of homicidal ligature strangulation can be precisely defined, it becomes clear that these events are not associated with conventional burial grounds in the classical sense of the term. ” the same rituals have spread, the researchers write, all of which claim they may be omens.
The two women from Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux are estimated to have died in 3500 BC, and the practice of ritual strangulation, tied to the religious beliefs of agricultural peoples, dates back at least 2000 years across Stone Age Europe. It may have been carried out over a period of time.
It was around this time that sites long used for ceremonial purposes across Europe began to be adorned with megalithic structures hewn from rock and transported across the landscape with no small amount of effort.
Perhaps predating the likes of Stonehenge, whispers of a long-lost religious identity remain in the graves of the men, women and children whose breath was strangled thousands of years ago. It may be.
This study scientific progress.
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