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IMAGE: he Potočani mass burial, with the upper layers of the pit showing numerous commingled skeletons. view more
Credit: Novak et al, 2021, PLOS ONE (CC-BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Genetic analysis provides clarity and also prompts further questions around an ancient massacre in Potočani, Croatia, in a study published March 10, 2021 in the open-access journal
PLOS ONE by Mario Novak from the Institute for Anthropological Research, Croatia, Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna, Austria, David Reich from Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, USA, and colleagues.
To date anthropological and genomic analysis of early massacres has revealed cases where the victims were plausibly killed due to battle, in-versus-out-group conflicts (such as targeting of specific families or recent migrants), or religious ritual. The massacre of 41 individuals in Potočani, Croatia, 6,200 years ago described in this study, one of the
Ancient death pit found where villagers killed their own in random massacre
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Bone pit may be site of earliest-known indiscriminate mass killing
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Remains from Croatia’s Copper Age Massacre Analyzed
ZAGREB, CROATIA According to a
Gizmodoreport, Mario Novak of Croatia’s Institute for Anthropological Research, Ron Pinhasi of the University of Vienna, and David Reich of Harvard University analyzed the remains and genomes of 38 people of the Lasinja culture who were buried in a mass grave in what is now eastern Croatia some 6,200 years ago. The Lasinja people, Novak explained, were descended from Anatolian farmers and hunter-gatherers from Western Europe. They raised cattle and other livestock and used metal, he added. The study suggests that the men, women, and children were executed with different types of weapons and tools before their bodies were disposed of all at once in the pit. Some of the people were related, including a young man, his two daughters, and a nephew, but most of the people were unrelated to each other. No weapons or tools were found in the pit, but the skulls show injuries from blunt force traum
Oldest documented site of indiscriminate mass killing found in Croatia
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 Potočani, 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 ass