The first murder in history was 430,000 years ago – Trade

The violence inherent in human beings, accompanies the none from the beginning of time. Now, the study of a skull 430,000 years ago just confirmed that by the time the man was already able to killing .

The study, published today in the journal PLoS One analyzes the fatal injuries skull suffered by one of the individuals found at the site of the Sima of the Bones, in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Central Spain).

skull in question was recovered with the remains of 27 other individuals in excavations carried out between 1990 and 2010.

The sediments of the geological layer and the morphological features of these individuals allowed to determine that they all belonged to the same group and that they were dated at 430,000 years.

The remains, found in a hidden pit Cave Mayor of Atapuerca, were buried together, a fact that for decades has generated one of the greatest debates of prehistory among scientists.

For the team of Atapuerca, this accumulation of corpses could be considered the first indication of burial or act funeral , while for other paleontologists, could simply be due to the action of carnivores and scavengers or geological action mudflows and water. These hypotheses were discarded by the last Studies

There are only two options to explain this accumulation of corpses. That individuals fell accidentally from the vertical shaft that leads to Cueva Mayor (13 meters high) or they were deliberately deposited, as a funeral ceremony.

The study released today, based on analysis of fractures of the skull 17, closed the debate and confirms that this individual was killed and accumulated intentionally.

“First we did a study to rule that the signals had been made by carnivores, after analyzing geological data and finally, analyze the type of . broken bones With these data were able to discard hypothesis, “said lead author of the study, Nohemi room, UCM-ISCIII researcher at the Center of Evolution and Human Behavior

.” were only two possible causes: accidental loss and intentional accumulation, “he says.

The researchers studied 17 skull to determine when fractures had been made, postmortem (after death) or Perimortem (near death time).

skull 17 has two holes in the frontal bone, “just above the left eye socket. The study outline, size and shape of fractures allowed to determine which were made for the same purpose, and they were made when there was soft tissue, that is, or was alive or had died, “says Sala.

“No one falls down a slope and hit twice in the same place and with the same object,” argues Room ..

In addition, the amount of data, the type of injury and location they are “fall into the patterns used by the coroner to determine that there was a face to face meeting or conflict,” says the researcher.

“The study proves for the first time, a murder which it took place almost half a million years ago. Probably the oldest confirmed violent act in history, “says Sala.

The work involved researchers from the Joint Center Evolution and Human Behavior and other research centers in Spain, Paris, Beijing and New York .

Source: EFE