Archaeologists may have finally discovered how a 5,300-year-old skull ended up on the ledge of a deep vertical cave shaft in northern Italy.
The skull, without jaw, was discovered in 2015 during exploratory work in a natural plaster cave in northern Italy. It was found near the top of a vertical shaft, about 40 feet (12 meters) below a complex of meandering caves and 85 feet (26 meters) below ground level.
To find a skull in such a strange and isolated place came as a complete surprise, to say the least. No other human remains have been found in the immediate vicinity, nor any archaeological evidence. The location of the inverted skull – a natural hollow in the shaft – is accessible only with special climbing equipment, and not a place that ancient peoples could have easily reached.
In 2017, archaeologists returned to the cave, known as Marcel Loubens, to document and retrieve the skull. New Research Published today in PLOS One provides a detailed analysis of the fossil, along with a possible explanation for how it ended up in such an unlikely place. The paper was led by archaeologist Maria Giovanna Belcastro from the University of Bologna in Italy.
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As the authors speculate, the skull was likely transported to the shelf by a series of natural geological processes, including sinkhole opening, mudslides, and running water. The 5,300-year-old fossil appears to have traveled through this cave system on its own.
For the study, the researchers were “focused on examining the circumstances surrounding this person’s death, as the skull shows signs of some lesions that appear to be the result of [post-death] manipulation probably performed to remove soft tissues. “
Indeed, the skull, known as the Marcel Loubens skull, or MLC for short, has some scratches and cuts consistent with the removal of flesh, which was likely done as part of a death ritual, according to the authors. Sounds bizarre, but debunking deceased individuals was a relatively common prehistoric practice (even under Neanderthals), both in this part of the world and elsewhere
As anthropologist Alessia Zielo from the University of Padua explained in a 2018 paper, there were some very good reasons to exercise:
In ancient cultures, the head was intended to be the seat of the soul, which contained the life force and possessed extraordinary qualities. It was also the profound symbol of a power closely related to the concepts of life, death and fertility. Even after death, the manipulation of the skulls showed that the remains of the deceased continued to play an important role in the community life to which [they] belonged.
It is no surprise, however, that the skull was found in a cave. The use of these Italian caves as “natural cavities”, in the words of the researchers, was common during the first half of the 3rd millennium BC, as shown by previous archaeological finds. Deceased individuals were brought into these caves and buried, which is likely the situation here. Indeed, radiocarbon dating of the skull dated it to between 3630 and 3380 BCE, placing it within this time frame known as the Eneolithic Period of Italy, also known as the Copper Age.
For context, Ötzi the iceman – that famous natural mummy embedded in ice – lived sometime between 3400 and 3100 BCE. Ötzi died in the Ötztal Alps on the border between Austria and Italy, and about 345 km north of Marcel Loubens Cave.
The skull, with a few more teeth on it, was found in remarkably good condition, allowing for a detailed analysis. Belcastro and her colleagues used microscopes and a CT scanner to study the fossil, in addition to analyzing a detailed 3D replica.
Detailed measurements of the skull were compared with a forensic database, suggesting it belonged to a woman who died between the ages of 24 and 35. The lesions likely occurred after death as no signs of healing were detected. Some ocher was also found, possibly related to the funeral ritual.
Other evidence suggests this woman was not particularly healthy. She was suffering from chronic anemia, such as iron or vitamin B deficiency. She likely endured long-term metabolic stress as a child, and she appears to have had an endocrine disorder, a dental analysis found. Indeed, the shift to Neolithic lifestyles was not all fun and games; New diets (based on agriculture), new living conditions and denser living conditions resulted in reduced health and increased exposure to unsanitary conditions, pathogens and parasites, according to the paper.
The lesions on the skull do not appear to have been caused by animal behavior such as biting, gnawing or scratching. What’s more, the detection of “irregularly thick calcite crusts” on the MLC fossil suggests that the skull began to move shortly after the woman was laid to rest, and through natural processes.
By conducting a geological survey of the cave system and studying the skull, the scientists have come up with a plausible explanation for the skull’s strange location.
Here’s the explanation: Shortly after the woman was put to rest, her skull came loose and rolled away. Water and mud began to flow through the cave, transporting the skull further down the slope of a sinkhole to a deeper cave. Continuous sinkhole activity shaped the cave in its current form and landed the skull in its strange resting place.
The Marcel Loubens Cave, it should be noted, is located in a depression in the region known locally as ‘Dolina dell’Inferno’, which literally translates to ‘Hell’s Sinkhole’. That sinkhole activity and ongoing geological processes have transported the skull to such a strange place seems perfectly reasonable.
We will probably never know the exact story of how this skull ended up in that deep cave shaft, but this study offers some remarkable findings based on a single skull found entirely outside of an archaeological context. Archaeologists, as this article shows, are very adept at working with very little. In a way, it’s kind of what they do.