(Javier Trueba / Madrid Scientific Films)
CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks has a segment on what looks to be an ancient murder, the oldest one yet discovered. The mystery dates back 400,000 years and even pre-dates the Neanderthal people. The victim was found among 28 skeletons in a Spanish cave, known as the "pit of bones". The cause of death is unknown for most of the individuals, however one skull had wounds consistent with those caused by a spear or hand axe. The original paper appeared in the journal PLoS One. Here's another story in National Geographic.
The first known murder was just as brutal as any other. The attacker smashed the victim twice in the head, leaving matching holes above the victim’s left eyebrow. The dead body was then dropped down a 43-foot shaft into a cave—where it lay for nearly half a million years.
Talk about your cold case.
Paleontologists pieced together the 430,000-year-old skull and reported their forensic analysis Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE. Injuries to the skull represent the oldest direct evidence of homicide, the scientists say.
As for whether this was the first murder ever to occur, “for sure that’s not the case,” says Nohemi Sala, lead author of the study. The scientists can describe this victim as a young adult, but the age and even gender are unknown.
“In the fossil record, there are many cases of traumatic injury, but not a lot of evidence of killing,” says Sala, a paleontologist at the Instituto de Salud Carlos III in Madrid.
That doesn’t mean killing was uncommon before modern times, of course, but fossilized remains of any kind are relatively rare so far back.
