Rituals of human sacrifice by asphyxiation were part of the European Neolithic tradition for at least 2,000 years. The practice was transcultural, according to a study published on Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, and it traveled all over the European continent. The first records date back 7,400 years and were found in the Czech Republic; the most recent ones, the last of which is 5,500 years old, have been found in Catalonia and the south of France, in the continental south-west.
"It is the first time that it has been shown that a very specific type of sacrifice has been shared by people who live thousands of kilometers apart", explains in an email to La Vanguardia Eric Crubézy, the researcher at the Center for Anthropobiology and Genomics of Toulouse from Languedoc, in France, who has led the study. Answering how these different cultures arrived at such similar ritual forms is something scientists have been unable to do and leaves for future work. The find stems from an archaeological investigation at the site of Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, in France, on the banks of the Rhone and at the foot of the Alps. There, in what appeared to be a silo intended to store food, researchers unearthed the bodies of two women in unconventional positions: lying on their backs or sides, with their legs together and their ankles tucked behind their hips.
The position suggests that they died of asphyxiation, victims of a practice called noose strangulation, in which a rope is tied around the victim's ankles and neck so that he suffocates when he relaxes his legs. The technique is characterized by its cruelty, the researchers explain, to the point that the mafia uses it today to punish those it considers traitors. In the silo were the remains of a third woman, located between the other two, who investigators believe was buried alive.
These violent deaths took place under the cover of an architectural structure oriented towards the winter and summer solstices, which symbolizes the agricultural cycle. The site, with the anatomical position of the remains, led the researchers to believe that what they had found was not a run-of-the-mill grave, but a site of human sacrifice where the Neolithic inhabitants of the valley worshiped food security and success agricultural
To add some context to their find, they looked to see if other investigations of similar sites – Neolithic agricultural societies settled along a river – had found some remains with similar characteristics. The review of the scientific literature revealed at least 18 other similar cases (9 men, 4 women, an individual without defined gender and 4 children), distributed in thirteen sites along the European continent, from the Czech Republic to Catalonia .
The number could be much higher. "The position of the subjects is the only thing that suggests this kind of sacrifice, which implies that we could only support ourselves in properly excavated and well-documented sites", points out Crubézy. "For sure there are more than 20 cases in Europe, and there is no doubt that archaeologists will find new ones soon", he concludes.
In addition to the position, the scientists have analyzed, in the cases where the evidence was sufficiently detailed, the archaeological context of the site. This has revealed that twelve of the bodies were found in silos which, as in the French case, also seemed to be used to store food. And in at least ten of the excavations, the tomb was far from the usual ones of the time. These details add up to evidence that those individuals died as part of a ritual.
The geographical diversity in which researchers have found these remains and the wide period of time they date from reveal the rituals of human sacrifice by asphyxiation as a "transcultural phenomenon", they point out. That is to say, that the sacrifices took place in Neolithic communities of diverse cultures, previously characterized based on the ceramic remains found in each site.
Understanding in more detail the appearance, proliferation and distribution of these rituals, which are in a way religious, will require interdisciplinary studies, the authors say, that include anthropologists, Neolithic experts and forensics. Understanding this is key to better understanding the societies of the past and their relationship with power, agriculture and religion.
