In previous research, ancient massacre sites found men who died while pitted in battle or discovered executions of targeted families.
At other sites, evidence showed killing of members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established communities, and even murders of those who were part of religious rituals.
But a more recent discovery by a research team that includes two University of Wyoming faculty members reveals the oldest documented site of an indiscriminate mass killing 6,200 years ago in what is now Potocani, Croatia.
“The DNA, combined with the archaeological and skeletal evidence especially that indicating systematic violence, perhaps even execution-style demonstrates an indiscriminate massacre and haphazard burial of 41 individuals from an early pastoralist community in what is now eastern Croatia,” says James Ahern, a UW professor in the Department of Anthropology and associate vice provost for graduate education.
Analysis of Chilling Massacre Site Unearthed in Croatia Points to a Random Killing
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Horrifying ancient death pit where villagers butchered dozens of their own in random massacre
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March 10, 2021
The upper layers of the Potočani mass burial shows numerous commingled skeletons. James Ahern, a UW professor of anthropology and associate vice provost for graduate education, contributed to a paper that reveals the oldest documented site of an indiscriminate mass killing 6,200 years ago in what is now Potočani, Croatia. The paper was published in PLOS ONE March 10. (Jacqueline Balen Photo, Archaeological Museum in Zagreb)
In previous research, ancient massacre sites found men who died while pitted in battle or discovered executions of targeted families. At other sites, evidence showed killing of members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established communities, and even murders of those who were part of religious rituals.