Analysis of 6,200-Year-Old Grave Raises New Questions About Neolithic Massacre
Researchers in Croatia extracted DNA from 38 victims of a fifth-millennium B.C. mass killing
By Isis Davis-Marks
SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
MARCH 17, 2021
Some 6,200 years ago, at least 41 Copper Age men, women and children met a brutal end. Killed under mysterious circumstances, their corpses were unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave in what is now Potočani, a village in eastern Croatia.
When archaeologists first rediscovered the remains in 2007, they speculated that the victims were extended family members who’d been executed for unknown reasons. But new research published in the journal PLOS One reveals that most of the deceased had no familial ties, eliminating a leading explanation for their deaths—and prompting experts to once again ask who killed the group and why.
“That’s the one million-dollar question,” lead author Mario Novak, an archaeologist at the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, tells National Geographic’s Robin George Andrews. “We just don’t know.”
Unless more conclusive physical evidence surfaces, he says, “I don’t think we will ever find out.”
For the study, Novak and his colleagues obtained DNA samples from 38 of the 41 corpses buried in the grave, which measures around 6.5 feet wide and 3 feet deep, according to Live Science’s Mindy Weisberger. (The other three skeletons didn’t yield enough genetic matter for the researchers to evaluate.) Pottery found at the site suggests that the deceased belonged to the Copper Age Lasinja culture.
More:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/6200-year-old-mass-grave-suggests-evidence-indiscriminate-killing-180977249/
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