9,000-year-old skull may be oldest case of decapitation in New World
9,000-year-old skull may be oldest case of decapitation in New World
Josh Elliott, CTVNews.ca
@joshelliott14
Published Wednesday, September 23, 2015 2:01PM EDT
The oldest known example of human decapitation in the New World has been unearthed in South America, suggesting the ritualized practice of removing a person's head from its body has been happening in the West for thousands of years longer than previously thought.
The skull and severed hands of an approximately 9,000-year-old corpse have been found buried in Lapa do Santo, Brazil, prompting archaeologists to re-examine the true age of the practice. They had previously thought ritual decapitation had originated among human-sacrificing tribes dwelling in the Andes mountain range, in about 1000 BC. But the remains found in Brazil are thought to have been buried in about 7000 BC, as part of a sophisticated funeral ritual.
"We are more than doubling the chronological depth of this practice in South America," Andre Strauss, the lead archaeologist on the discovery, told CTVNews.ca by phone from Brazil. Strauss and his team of international experts published their findings in the Sep. 23 edition of the journal PLOS ONE, after they discovered the remains at a dig site in 2007.
In the West, ritual decapitation was thought to have started with human sacrifices in the Andes, on the western side of South America. But the discovery of the Lapa do Santo skull and hands in Brazil suggests the practice was around long before that, and on the other side of the continent. "This really changes the perspective of where it originated," Strauss said.
More:
http://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/9-000-year-old-skull-may-be-oldest-case-of-decapitation-in-new-world-1.2577260
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