Slaves, were probably young male slaves. Buried by their fellow slaves as best they could . We forget how prevalent slavery was .
46
catholic church active in that area , during those times?
2
Deliberate cranial deformation does not, can not, increase cranial volume. The two elongated skulls in these pictures clearly have greater volume than the 'normal' skulls that are shown for comparison.
7
"How did three teenagers, two of them with misshapen skulls, from thousands of miles apart in a time where travel wasn’t easy, wind up in a pit next to a highway in the middle of Croatia?"
They drove?
14
Probably either conscripts for an army that died of disease instead of war, or slaves buried by other slaves who held them in esteem.
This was the beginning of the Dark Ages, after all...
14
It appears to me the human in the pit was bound hands to ankles behind his back, which would certainly support the ritual theory. Strange the author didn't mention that.
4
Those look very much like what one finds in Peru, a place that has astounding ruins like Puma Punku and Sacsayhuaman. Though scoffed at by scientists, the ruins seem to predate Inca ruins by, what to many, is controversial amounts of time. There is a lot more to human prehistory than is officially accepted by science. What is the likelihood of having the same type of skull deformation on both sides of the Atlantic from cultures that never interacted?
24
OK, 415 to 560 covers a lot of territory, but it includes the reign of Attila the Hun, whose people are usually believed to have been of predominantly East Asian ancestry. Attila repeatedly raided the area where the bones were found. The Byzantines continued to use Hunnish mercenaries in the area into the Sixth Century CE. It's not surprising to find someone who might have been a Hun there. Attila was the overlord of the Lombards and Gepids, as well as of other Germanic tribes, and both Lombards and Gepids were active in the area well into the Sixth Centuries. That would explain the "western European" ancestry. Attila took lots of Romans as captive, among whom it wouldn't be surprising to find a certain number of Romans originally from the Middle East. Lots of plausible scenarios could account for the sets of bones being together.
90
These poor children, to be captured, starved and sacrificed. Our ancestors suffered so much.
24
@KTT
I suspect those youngsters, like the clergy who took their vows of celibacy seriously, were nobody's ancestors.
13
The research article notes that the one unifying aspect of the tree skeletons is incredible stress on health due to hunger and malnutrition, which was common at the time.
And there was a heavy reliance on millet in their diet.
35
We think todays humans are the most traveled folks ever.
And I have been to 116 countries.
I have always maintained the urge to travel, explore, impart our culture is what sets us humans apart from all other species.
Humans were born free and always travelled and will - until time immemorial.
And we carry our cultural baggage with us - and often leave behind some even after we have moved on.
This practice in Africa where women's necks are lengthened for beauty or whatever the reasons are - continues even today.
So,this practice of cranial deformation is not surprising.
During his travels with Magellans, - Antonio Pigafetta documented taking humans from other cultures. And we are talking about just 500 years ago.
When Antonio finally landed - he had a couple of Asians as present for his king.
So, this finding is really not that strange.
And it happened a mere millennial before times of Magellan.
22
@Neil
Neck lengthening occurs in Burma, not Africa.
9
We think todays humans are the most traveled folks ever.
And I have been to 116 countries.
I have always maintained the urge to travel, explore, impart our culture is what sets us humans apart from all other species.
Humans were born free and always travelled and will - until time immemorial.
And we carry our cultural baggage with us - and often leave behind some even after we have moved on.
This practice in Africa where women's necks are lengthened for beauty or whatever the reasons are - continues even today.
So,this practice of cranial deformation is not surprising.
During his travels with Magellans, - Antonio Pigafetta documented taking humans from other cultures. And we are talking about just 500 years ago.
When Antonio finally landed - he had a couple of Asians as present for his king.
So, this finding is really not that strange.
And it happened a mere millennial before times of Magellan.
2
@Neil - Compared to animals, I think humans are pretty sedentary. Consider Orcas swimming up and down the west coast from Alaska to southern waters every year. Or Monarch butterflies and their long migrations. Birds?
No, Orcas do not paint on cave walls and Monarchs do not leave pottery shards all over the planet. Perhaps they are more advanced than humans?
12
There is abundant evidence of trade between the Roman Empire, including after the split, and the inhabitants of what is now known as China
There are also many records of tribal migrations from the East during that period
So the fact that persons whose origins were distant were found in what is now Croatia is not at all hard to explain
But the answer to whether those persons arrived via trade or migration and why they were buried together remains
26
Cranial “deformation” is more commonly called cranial modification today by anthropologists, because of the negative moral judgement implied in calling a skull “deformed”.
It’s a long standing practice, often designed to make the head shape more attractive, as when it was carried out in medieval Europe and in anciently in many other parts of the world. In fact in the present day US and elsewhere the tradition continues with the use of rounding “halo” helmets to create a desirable cranial profile for babies with the “condition” of flat head. This in turn often comes from the currently medically fashionable practice of putting babies to sleep on their backs.
48
Perhaps they came together because of a very old Woodstock.....
27
Where is "western Eurasia"? Eastern Europe? Western Asia? Please use intelligible terms.
34
@J. D. Crutchfield
Where in "Long Island City", NY?
Curmudgeons do exist.
12
@J. D. Crutchfield
These terms make sense to me. Here are place names that I never get though? Uptown, midtown, and downtown. They are used all of the time as if everyone is supposed to know exactly what they denote.
And expanding upon the question asked by the other commenter, I just Googled the matter, read an article about it, and am still struggling with both the location and the concept of Long Island City. Is it a city, a neighborhood, a village, or what?
18
"For the researchers, it was a difficult mystery, packed with surprises. For instance, artificial cranial deformation is more common among females; the scientists couldn’t explain why the skulls belonged to males."
Is it not more than a bit presumptuous to assume their gender? Who knows how these people identified?
6
Good luck with that
8
@Brenda
As I understand it, researchers can determine sex from both skulls and pelvises.
25
They are referring to biological sex. Not gender identity. (And I am the mother of a transgender child.) There is much still unknown about the bones, their gender identity included :)
29
Cranial deformation as a social practice? Well, thank God that particular tradition has died out as a practice. No doubt it all made perfect sense to the ancients, still - and please mind my revisionism - some of the idiocies the old world inhabitants inflicted on themselves, especially children, are beyond belief.
24
@Chris
Nowadays we do cranial deformation without binding: everyone constantly looks down at the phone,
The back of the neck and the muscle attachment points at the back of the skull, expand in response to the strain and
… voila!
13
the explosion of discoveries on land, in the sea and millions and millions and millions of miles--and further--in space seem to have accelerated in recent years.
what can be gleaned thru ancient DNA is gobsmacking.
31
@brupic
Ancient DNA found millions of miles out in space is indeed gobsmacking,
… if any has been found, and returned to earth for analysis).
[Is NASA holding out on us again?]
2
The three teenagers probably came together as war captives or slaves, possibly of the Huns, or perhaps the Eastern Romans (Byzantines).
88
@Jon Harrison
Also, they were buried with significant items, and the article even states that they suspect a ritualistic or honorific burial.
17
@Andrew Roberts
Probably not honorific, given the ethnic diversity and the haphazard position of the skeletons. My speculation is that these boys were captured as infants and subjected to cranial deformation (two of them) for religious reasons, then sacrificed when they reached puberty (more or less) and thrown into the pit with votive objects. I think that by the time the Roman Empire split, the Romans had given up human sacrifice, so (if I'm right) it probably wasn't the Byzantines.
21
@Andrew Roberts
Or as a general “house cleaning” following the leadership succession of a tribe or clan, the new chief not wanting to be burdened or cursed by the possessions of the prior leader. Same thing happens today in any organization, though not as blatantly brutal perhaps.
20