The Talheim Death Pit (German: Massaker von Talheim), discovered in 1983, was a mass grave found in a Linear Pottery Culture settlement, also known as a Linearbandkeramik (LBK) culture. It dates back to about 5000 BC. The pit takes its name from its site in Talheim, Germany. The pit contained the remains of 34 bodies, and evidence points towards the first signs of organized violence in Early Neolithic Europe.
Warfare is thought to have been more prevalent in primitive, ungoverned regions than in civilized states.[5] The massacre at Talheim supports this idea by giving evidence of habitual warfare between Linearbandkeramik settlements.[6] It is most likely that the violence occurred among LBK populations since the head wounds indicate the use of weapons from LBK cultures and all skeletons found resemble those of LBK settlers.[6]
The Talheim grave contained a total of 34 skeletons, consisting of 16 children, nine adult males, seven adult women, and two more adults of indeterminate sex.[7][8] Several skeletons of this group exhibited signs of repeated and healed-over trauma, suggesting that violence was a habitual or routine aspect of the culture.[6] Not all of the wounds, however, were healed at the time of death. All of the skeletons at Talheim showed signs of significant trauma that were likely the cause of death. Broken down into three categories, 18 skulls were marked with wounds indicating the sharp edge of adzes of the Linearbandkeramik or Linear Pottery culture (LBK); 14 skulls were similarly marked with wounds produced from the blunt edge of adzes, and 2–3 had wounds produced by arrows.[8] The skeletons did not exhibit evidence of defensive wounds, indicating that the population was fleeing when it was killed.[8]
Reasons for violence
Investigation of the Neolithic skeletons found in the Talheim death pit suggests that prehistoric men from neighboring tribes were prepared to fight and kill each other in order to capture and secure women. Researchers discovered that there were women among the immigrant skeletons, but within the local group of skeletons there were only men and children.[4] They concluded that the absence of women among the local skeletons meant that they were regarded as somehow special, thus they were spared execution and captured instead. The capture of women may have indeed been the primary motive for the fierce conflict between the men.[9][10]
Other speculations as to the reasons for violence between settlements include vengeance, conflicts over land, resources, poaching, demonstration of superiority, and kidnapping slaves.[6] Some of these theories related to the lack of resources are supported by the discovery that various LBK fortifications bordering indigenously inhabited areas appear to have not been in use for very long.[6]
The mass grave near Schletz, part of Asparn an der Zaya, was located about 33 kilometres (roughly 20 miles) to the north of Vienna, Austria, and dates back about 7,500 years.[11] Schletz, just like the Talheim death pit, is one of the earliest known sites in the archaeological record that shows proof of genocide in Early Neolithic Europe, among various LBK tribes.[11] The site was not entirely excavated, but it is estimated that the entire ditch could contain up to 300 individuals.[6] The remains of 67 people have been uncovered, all showing multiple points of trauma.[11] Scientists have concluded that these people were also victims of genocide.[11] Since the weapons used were characteristic of LBK peoples, the attackers are believed to be members of other LBK tribes.[6] In similar proportions to those found at Talheim, fewer young women were found than men at Schletz. Because of this scarcity of young women among the dead, it is possible that other women of the defeated group were kidnapped by the attackers.[11] The site was enclosed, or fortified, which serves as evidence of violent conflict among tribes and means that these fortifications were built as a form of defense against aggressors.[6] The people who lived there had built two ditches to counter the menace of other LBK communities.[6][citation needed]
Another Early Neolithic mass grave was found at Herxheim, near Landau in the Rhineland-Palatinate.[12] The site, unlike the mass burials at Talheim and Schletz, serves as proof of ritual cannibalism rather than of the first signs of violence in Europe.
Herxheim contained 173 skulls and skull-plates, and the scattered remains of at least 450 individuals.[6] Two complete skeletons were found inside the inner ditch.[6] The crania from these bodies were discovered at regular intervals in the two defensive ditches surrounding the site.[13] After the victims were decapitated, their heads were either thrown into the ditch or placed on top of posts that later collapsed inside the ditch.[13] The heads showed signs of trauma from axes and one other weapon.[13] Moreover, the organized placing of the skulls suggests a recurrent ritual act, instead of a single instance.[12] Herxheim also contained various high-quality potteryartifacts and animal bones associated with the human remains.[12] Unlike the mass burial at Talheim, scientists have concluded that instead of being a fortification, Herxheim was an enclosed center for ritual.[12]
Mass burial at Schöneck-Kilianstädten
This Neolithic mass grave, also in modern-day Germany, may exhibit signs of deliberate mutilation and/or torture.[14] Skeletal analysis of the interred remains showed a remarkably high percentage of long bones (especially in the lower leg) which were broken around the time of the individuals' deaths, which insinuates a deliberate targeting of these areas of the body, possibly as the victims were still alive.[14] The mass grave dates to 5207–4849 BCE, and has been referred to as "indisputable evidence for another massacre".[14]
Notes
↑ Highfield, Roger (2 June 2008). "Neolithic men were prepared to fight for their women". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-08-05. But once the new method was used to separate the victims by geographic origin, it was clear that the local group was special - local because it was the only group with any young children, and special because it was the only group without adult women, despite being the largest group. The researchers conclude the absence of local females indicates that they were spared execution and captured instead which may have indeed been the primary motivation for the attack.
↑ Highfield, Roger (2 June 2008). "Neolithic men were prepared to fight for their women". www.telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2023-08-05. But once the new method was used to separate the victims by geographic origin, it was clear that the local group was special - local because it was the only group with any young children, and special because it was the only group without adult women, despite being the largest group. The researchers conclude the absence of local females indicates that they were spared execution and captured instead which may have indeed been the primary motivation for the attack.
Gimbutas, M. (1980). "The Transformation of European and Anatolian Culture 4500–2500 B.C. and its Legacy". Journal of Indo-European Studies, 8 (1&2), 1–2.
Golitko, M. & Keeley, L.H. (2007). "Beating ploughshares back into swords: warfare in the Linearbandkeramik." Antiquity, 81, 332–342.
Guilaine, Jean; Zammit, Jean (2005). The Origins of War: Violence in Prehistory. Wiley-Blackwell.
Keeley, L.H. (1996). War Before Civilization. New York: Oxford University. 37, 93.
Mallory, J.P. (1989). In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. London: Thames & Hudson.
Orschiedt, J & Haidle, M.N. (2006). "The LBK Enclosure at Herxeim: Theatre of War or Ritual Centre?" Journal of Conflict Archeology, 2.1, 153–167.
Pavúk, J. (1991) "Lengyel-culture Fortified Settlements in Slovakia." Antiquity, 65, 348–357.
Robinson, C. A. (2005). "Archeology". In Ciovacco, J. (ed.), Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Farmington Hills, MI: Thomas Gale
Scarre, Chris (2005). The Human Past: World Prehistory and the Development of Human Societies. London: Thames and Hudson.
Related Research Articles
The term Danubian culture was coined by the Australian archaeologist Vere Gordon Childe to describe the first agrarian society in Central Europe and Eastern Europe. It covers the Linear Pottery culture, stroked pottery and Rössen cultures.
The European Neolithic is the period when Neolithic technology was present in Europe, roughly between 7000 BC and c. 2000–1700 BC. The Neolithic overlaps the Mesolithic and Bronze Age periods in Europe as cultural changes moved from the southeast to northwest at about 1 km/year – this is called the Neolithic Expansion.
A shoe-last celt is a long thin polished stone tool for felling trees and woodworking, characteristic of the early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik and Hinkelstein cultures, also called Danubian I in the older literature.
Bylany is a Danubian Neolithic archaeological site located around 65 km (40 mi) east of Prague in the Czech region of Bohemia. Excavation began in 1955 and work continues today.
Prehistoric warfare refers to war that occurred between societies without recorded history.
The Crow Creek massacre occurred around the mid-14th century AD and involved Native American groups at a site along the upper Missouri River in the South Dakota area; it is now within the Crow Creek Indian Reservation. Crow Creek Site, the site of the massacre near Chamberlain, is an archaeological site and a U.S. National Historic Landmark, located at coordinates 43°58′48″N 99°19′54″W. An excavation of part of the site was done in the 1950s, at the time of dam construction on the river. Additional excavations were conducted in 1978 and later.
The Globular Amphora culture, c. 3400–2800 BC, is an archaeological culture in Central Europe. Marija Gimbutas assumed an Indo-European origin, though this is contradicted by newer genetic studies that show a connection to the earlier wave of Early European Farmers rather than to Western Steppe Herders from the Ukrainian and western-southern Russian steppes.
Poltavka culture was an early to middle Bronze Age archaeological culture which flourished on the Volga-Ural steppe and the forest steppe in 2800—2200 BCE.
The Abashevo culture is a late Middle Bronze Age archaeological culture, ca. 2200–1850 BC, found in the valleys of the middle Volga and Kama River north of the Samara bend and into the southern Ural Mountains. It receives its name from the village of Abashevo in Chuvashia.
The Rössen culture or Roessen culture is a Central European culture of the middle Neolithic.
The Michelsberg culture is an important Neolithic culture in Central Europe. Its dates are c. 4400–3500 BC. Its conventional name is derived from that of an important excavated site on Michelsberg hill near Untergrombach, between Karlsruhe and Heidelberg (Baden-Württemberg).
Raptio is a Latin term for the large-scale abduction of women: kidnapping for marriage, concubinage or sexual slavery. The equivalent German term is Frauenraub.
War Before Civilization: the Myth of the Peaceful Savage is a book by Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor of archaeology at the University of Illinois at Chicago who specialized in prehistoric Europe. The book deals with warfare conducted throughout human history by societies with little technology. In the book, Keeley aims to stop the apparent trend in seeing modern civilization as bad, by setting out to prove that prehistoric societies were often violent and engaged in frequent warfare that was highly destructive to the cultures involved.
Koszyce is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Wojciechowice, within Opatów County, Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship, in south-central Poland. It lies approximately 3 kilometres (2 mi) south-west of Wojciechowice, 11 km (7 mi) east of Opatów, and 67 km (42 mi) east of the regional capital Kielce.
The Linear Pottery culture (LBK) is a major archaeological horizon of the European Neolithic period, flourishing c. 5500–4500 BC. Derived from the German Linearbandkeramik, it is also known as the Linear Band Ware, Linear Ware, Linear Ceramics or Incised Ware culture, falling within the Danubian I culture of V. Gordon Childe.
The archaeological site of Herxheim, located in the municipality of Herxheim in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and a mass grave formed by people of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) culture in Neolithic Europe. The site is often compared to that of the Talheim Death Pit and Schletz-Asparn, but is quite different in nature. The site dates from between 5300 and 4950 BC. The site contained the scattered remains of more than 1000 individuals from different, in some cases faraway regions. Whether they were war captives or human sacrifices is unclear, but the evidence indicates that they were roasted and consumed.
Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, is the site of an archaeological investigation which uncovered the remains of 27 people. It dates between 9,500 and 10,500 BP. The remains have garnered wide media attention for possible bioarchaeological evidence of interpersonal violence, i.e. prehistoric warfare.
The Karsdorf remains are the bodies of more than 30 Neolithic humans who were buried in the vicinity of Karsdorf, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany.
In the Massacre of Schletz, more than 200 Neolithic people were killed by blunt force 7000 years ago, towards the end of the Linear Pottery culture epoch, before being carelessly dumped in a mass grave on the site of the present-day village of Schletz.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
