Ancient Secrets Unearthed: Mysterious Neolithic Tomb Filled with Human Skulls and Goat Skeleton Discovered in Spain
According to EurekaAlert, these findings have forced experts like Daniel García Rivero to reevaluate Neolithic funerary rites from the era — and how much we actually know.
“This finding opens new lines of research and anthropological scenarios, where human and animal sacrifice may have been related to ancestral cults, propitiatory rituals, and divine prayers in commemorative festivities,” said Rivero.
University of SevilleThe female skull contained a depression and clear signs of decapitation.
Published in the PLOS ONE journal, the findings have detailed a funerary ritual from the Middle Neolithic period that nobody has ever seen before. Virtually none of the unearthed excavations from this era in the Iberian Peninsula share the layout or assortment of items uncovered here.
The two adult human skulls belonged to a man and a woman, with the latter confirmed as being slightly older. Some markings on the female skull’s occipital bone indicate decapitation. And, a depression on the female skull’s frontal bone is thought to have stemmed from an incomplete trepanation.
According to LiveScience, trepanation was an ancient surgical intervention in which the skull was perforated for a variety of ailments. While some believe drilling into people’s skulls was primarily done to treat head injuries, other experts suggest the practice was used to ritualistically pull spirits from the patient’s body.
University of SevilleThe interior of the dig site, labeled to indicate the wall separating the finds.
“The differential treatment of skulls with traumatological evidence along with sacrificed animals, as well as the documented archaeological structures and materials do not match the normative funerary record we were working with until now,” said Rivero.
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