Archaeologists have found a cave with the remains of people who died more than seven thousand years ago. The bodies bear traces of cruel reprisals. In total, scientists have found the remains of 13 people, including children. Some were shot, others were beaten with blunt objects, according to the TV channel "360".
According to scientists, all the victims did not die at the same time, but with a difference of about a thousand years. The report, published in the journal Nature, does not directly state, but it can be concluded that this cave is a place of prolonged human sacrifice.
The bodies were found in a cave called El Trox, in the Spanish province of Huesca. Archaeologists have carefully examined the remains of nine people who seem to have been killed here before anyone else. These are five adults and four children. Children were beaten to death with something stupid. The adults were shot with bows. Their death occurred between 5325 and 5067 BC.
Interestingly, this ancient massacre has no archaeological counterpart in the rest of Europe. In addition to the version about sacrifices, scientists made several more assumptions, without insisting on any of them. For example, found bodies are victims of a battle for resources, or for territories. Or members of one tribe - if there were still tribes then - came to steal women from another tribe and were caught red-handed. Or is it generally ritual murders - still, for a thousand years in a row, in the same place, in the same cave, both old and young died. Scientists are not considering perhaps a version of cannibalism - although, perhaps, they simply did not indicate this in the report.
One of the scientists' versions is that migrants found death here. Just at the time when these people were killed, there was a resettlement of hunters and gatherers throughout Europe. Mountains were their natural boundaries and barriers.
But it was proposed to build an artificial barrier on the border with Ukraine to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Lipetsk archaeologist Alexander Bessudnov reminded the head of state that in ancient times the Great Russian Wall ran from Tambov to Kharkov - a man-made structure that protected Russia from the raids of the steppe inhabitants. If restored, the wall could become an object of pilgrimage for domestic tourists. It is interesting that part of this structure, the Belgorod notch line, passed exactly along the current border of Russia and Ukraine.