The crime scene was well known to authorities and research analysts – the Qafzeh Cave in Israel. The victim’s remains had signs of a jaw injury caused by a sharp object. The motive for the crime was obscure. There was some possibility of accidental death, but no witnesses could come forward. Approximately 100,000 years had passed between the commission of the crime and the discovery of the remains in 1979. The case is one of only a handful documented from the Middle Paleolithic period. Yet, scientists using advanced 3D imaging technology have “new evidence of sharp-force trauma in the individual Qafzeh-25,” according to their report,“A Taphonomic Reassessment of Qafzeh 25 and its Implications for Violence, Health and Funerary Practices” published in Nature.
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Close-up of the healed sharp-force injury on the left mandible of the Qafzeh 25 individual from Qafzeh Cave, Israel. Bone remodeling around the lesion indicates the early Homo sapiens survived the injury, making it one of the oldest known healed facial wounds in the archaeological record. (Pantoja-Pérez, A., Martín-Francés, L., May, H., Hershkovitz, I., & Sala, N./CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Violence Arose from Territorialism
The victim is one of at least 27 early modern people whom archaeologists have uncovered in burials at Qafzeh, notes Ana Pantoja-Pérez, the study’s lead author and a member of the DEATHREVOL research group, a grant project of the European Research Council carried out at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana – CENIEH (Spain). She believes that the findings add new evidence to the debate over how complex human behaviors regarding health, violence, and funerary practices developed. Other graves in the cave contained the remains of children with varied health conditions. There was a high infant mortality rate due to environmental factors, malnutrition, and disease. The chance of accidental death or harsh living conditions was high, and hereditary factors made children vulnerable to illness.
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The victim’s skeletal remains, dated to between 92,000 and 145,000 years ago, are unique. They show a healed jawbone injury consistent with sharp-force trauma. Study co-author Israel Hershkovitz suggests that violence possibly arose in “the early emergence of territorialism, as inferred from the establishment of a graveyard in the cave.”
The entrance to Qafzeh Cave near Nazareth, Israel. Excavations at this Middle Paleolithic site uncovered some of the earliest Homo sapiens fossils found outside Africa, including individuals showing evidence of intentional burial and healed traumatic injuries. Source: (LS/CC BY-SA 4.0)
Advanced Imaging Technology Cracks the Stone Age Cold Case
The study report details a broad range of advanced imaging technologies. Researchers used “an integrated macro-, microscopic, and micro-computed tomography analysis that revealed a linear lesion affecting the left mandible and third premolar, consistent with an injury caused by a sharp object." Further examination of the fracture and thickened bone margins showed that the injury had healed, and the stabbing victim continued to live. Researchers identified dental pathologies, such as carious lesions and enamel defects, that demonstrate biological vulnerability and hereditary factors.
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Conclusion
Pantoja-Pérez notes that the case represents one of the earliest documented examples of sharp-force trauma in the archaeological record. The researchers also did a taphonomic study to investigate the physical, biological, and chemical processes that affect an organism’s remains, including decomposition, scavenging, and fossilization. The “taphonomic study confirmed that Qafzeh-25 was deliberately buried, reinforcing previous interpretations of the site as a place of formal burials in the early Late Pleistocene.” The study emphasizes that interpersonal violence, care for the sick or injured, and burial customs are the keys to understanding how human society and culture evolved.
Top Image: Left lateral view of the Qafzeh 25 skull from Qafzeh Cave, Israel. Researchers identified a healed sharp-force injury to the mandible, providing one of the earliest known examples of survived facial trauma in Homo sapiens. (Pantoja-Pérez, A., Martín-Francés, L., May, H., Hershkovitz, I., & Sala, N./CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
By Ramsey Hardin
References
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