It was discovered in 2015 – a remote glimpse of a macabre mystery that has evolved thousands of years into the past.
This ancient puzzle consisted of only one piece: a lonely human cranium, found alone with no other skeletal remains around, resting inside a cave in Bologna, Italy, in the middle of a cave. depression the call of the locals Dolina dell’Inferno (Hell sinkhole).
It was not an easy thing to find.
The hidden skull, which missed its lower mouth, could only be reached by crossing a difficult cave passage known as the Meandro della cattiveria (Maze of Malice), and then a steep ascent to a height of 12 meters (39 ft), where the cranium lay on rocky ledges.
Due to difficulty accessing the space, speleologists were unable to recover the cranium until 2017, at which time researchers had the opportunity to examine this ancient secret sample.
The lonesome skull turned ancient indeed, with radiocarbon dates indicating that the cranium belonged to a person who lived sometime between 3630 and 3380 BCE, placing them within an early Eneolithic (aka Chalcolithic) archaeological context. of the area.
Other Eneolithic human remains have been found in the general area; not in a hellish dungeon, but in a rock shelter about 600 meters (nearly 2,000 feet) away from the cave in which the skull was found.
So the larger context makes some sense. But what exactly got this lonely skull so far removed from its Eneolithic contemporaries, perched high on a slab, but still buried within the vicinity of a cave cave, and hidden at a depth of 26 meters (85 ft) underground?
According to anthropologist Maria Giovanna Belcastro from the University of Bologna – the first author of a new study of how the skull was unusual – there were several factors at play.
The Belcastro team examined the cranium, which the team says is most likely to come from a young woman, aged 24 to 35.
There appears to be evidence of various injuries to the sides of the skull as a result of human manipulation of the skull at the time of the woman’s death, the researchers suggest, possibly reflecting ritual actions to flesh removed from the cranium, as part of a funeral practice.
Other injuries to the cranium, some believed to be an antemortem (before they died), may have been caused by an injury that killed the woman, and other symptoms could be evidence of a type of medical treatment that her people passed.
As for how the skull was so separated from the rest of its skeleton, the researchers assume that the cranium may have been deliberately or unintentionally removed from the rest. of the body, before being rolled or pushed to the ground by water or mud flow, until it somehow came to the edge of a hole beneath hell, and was finally within the depression. .
Over time, irrigation in the subsurface may have dispersed gypsum deposits in the cave, forming the mast just adjacent to the skull’s secure resting place.
“The passage of the regenerated cave began to descend, with the formation of a sinking stone and the carving of the maze below,” the researchers write in their paper. .
“This new reaction was able to bind about 12 meters of gypsum in, connecting to the declining low level.”
Various sediments inserted into the cranial cavity slightly support this argument, suggesting that a case was trapped inside the skull during the flow of water or debris, while the skull did. his incredible, chaotic journey into the cave. Other signs of trauma to the cranium suggest many bumps along the way.
This hypothetical explanation did not necessarily occur, of course, something we cannot be certain with. But as the researchers point out, of all parts of a human skeleton, the shape of a skull makes it more suitable for running water.
“If the skeleton had been intact by the time of this series of events, other skeletal elements, varying in shape and size, might have remained the same and scattered during transport,” the authors recommend.
“The cranium would be rolled more easily than other skeletal parts in the flow of water and debris flow … During its decay and these dynamic stages, it would be filled with sediment. So it would be on the cave. reach and stop on the plateau where he was found. “
The results are reported in PLOS One.