QuoteResearchers believe it is the earliest scientifically-dated historical evidence of human conflict - an ancient precursor to what we call warfare.
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-01/uoc-eoa011516.php
Band of hunter-gatherers massacred probably by intruders from a different region, using obsidian projectile-points.
I have wondered about this discovery for some time now. An entire clan is, as far as we can determine, wiped out but no weapons are found. Fragments of obsidian are embedded in some bones and others show signs of severe crushing, which looks promising but might have more than one explanation. "Stone tools were found too, 131 with the bodies and hundreds more right around them," according to this site (http://archaeologybriefs.blogspot.co.uk/).
What would 27 bodies be doing with 'hundreds' of 'stone tools'? That would give at least ten tools per individual, or rather more given that some of the individuals were infants or young children.
I begin to wonder if a wholly or partly obsidian shower, perhaps from a nearby volcano, might be the culprit. It would have to fling felsic - basically granitic - lava high upwards into the stratosphere so that it cooled rapidly before falling to earth in a shower of differently-sized stones, and be directionally driven, either by a jetstream or by an abnormally strong wind at lower altitude. One of the volcanoes in the vicinity of Lake Turkana might be considered a possible candidate. (Alastair might have something knowledgeable to say about this one way or the other: I am just guessing.)
If it was an obsidian or mixed lava deposit shower, it would presumably leave a wider pattern of stones than those found in the immediate vicinity of the dead clan. Conversely, if the massacre was by human agency, looking further afield would produce no further stones of this nature. In the latter event, we might still wonder who would be carrying the 'hundreds of tools' and why. We might further wonder why they were left in situ by the victors.
That said, even if a volcano turns out to be the culprit, it does not mean that warfare did not exist at this period, just that we have to go further afield for evidence.
Curiously, Nataruk (the site) is an anagram of Turkana, the nearby lake.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 09, 2016, 07:27:46 PM
Curiously, Nataruk (the site) is an anagram of Turkana, the nearby lake.
meddle not in the affairs of cartographers, because they are subtle and quick to anger
The "position indicating their hands had probably been bound" doesn't fit well with the rain-of-death-from-the-sky suggestion. And the researchers do think that the obsidian shards are "artefacts" and "bladelets" - one would have thought that this meant they showed signs of being worked. (I think the "bladelet" is the same piece called a "small obsidian knife" in the photo at http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.698422)
These I wondered about also. The 'obsidian knife' is degraded to a 'small projectile' in the accompanying photograph (http://www.haaretz.com/polopoly_fs/7.1377572.1453274071!/image/2831968953.jpg_gen/derivatives/headline_1434x807/2831968953.jpg), and lacks such knifley accoutrements as a handle. That said, what we can see of its shape looks quite regular and it may have a snapped-off piece closest to the camera. Figure 3 on this page (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/full/nature16477.html) shows a number of 'microliths' which appear to have been worked, including the obsidian 'bladelet', which looks much less regular in this view.
The "position indicating their hands had probably been bound" is not upheld by the first image (in the article as opposed to the sidebar) on this page (http://in-africa.org/discoveries-at-nataruk/), which shows one hand holding the wrist of the other. Scroll down to the third set of images in the article for the other 'bound' individual, the heavily-pregnant woman: her arms are crossed halfway down the forearms as if attempting to shield her abdomen, not near the wrists, while her leg positions are consistent with a woman in labour.
Hence the doubts.
Personally, I think it is highly unlikely that a team of archaeologists could mistake worked obsidian for accidentally shards from an eruption. It would also be unlikely that obsidian would be present and no other sign of volcanic debris.
On the large number of tools, a possible explanation may be the lakeside is a traditional stop over place for the clan and, while their, they make and use tools. Stone tools are hard to date even vaguely, so these tools may not all be contemporary.
It is an explanation, although the mind boggles at the idea of an array of tools left abandoned by the lakeside between visits, and even more so at the idea of a tool depository over the ages.
Quote from: Erpingham on March 10, 2016, 11:02:09 AM
It would also be unlikely that obsidian would be present and no other sign of volcanic debris.
"
The bodies were not buried. Some had fallen into a lagoon that has long since dried; the bones preserved in sediment. " - from the article Duncan originally quoted. I suspect they would have been covered by fresh sediment rather than being able to burrow into dried sediment
post-mortem. The sediment would have to cover the bodies quite quickly during or after the event in order to shield them from the ubiquitous necrophagic African carnivores. What would move that amount of sediment that quickly? Not a raiding tribe, I am thinking.
I am not 100% committed to the idea of death by volcanic stone shower, but it is proving to be quite hard to exclude.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 10, 2016, 11:47:51 AM
It is an explanation, although the mind boggles at the idea of an array of tools left abandoned by the lakeside between visits, and even more so at the idea of a tool depository over the ages.
I can't quote a reference, but isn't it in fact quite common to find enormous quantities of stone tools, unfinished and defective tools, and flakes and offcuts, at what are effectively manufacturing sites?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 10, 2016, 11:47:51 AM
It is an explanation, although the mind boggles at the idea of an array of tools left abandoned by the lakeside between visits, and even more so at the idea of a tool depository over the ages.
Not by any means an expert on prehistory but long term usage of the same site is well-attested in hunter-gather societies. Also, discarded stone tools are the major artefact left behind in the archaeological record of these sites (though, as we know from sites where organic materials are preserved, probably not the most common items in the material possessions of the group).
Quote
I am not 100% committed to the idea of death by volcanic stone shower, but it is proving to be quite hard to exclude.
Best of luck with the attempt :)
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 10, 2016, 11:54:03 AM
I can't quote a reference, but isn't it in fact quite common to find enormous quantities of stone tools, unfinished and defective tools, and flakes and offcuts, at what are effectively manufacturing sites?
I would expect that it is. I would also expect a manufacturing site to be quite close to a source of supply. Another question might be: if it were a manufacturing site, for whom were these hundreds of tools being made?
Quote from: Erpingham on March 10, 2016, 12:07:32 PM
Not by any means an expert on prehistory but long term usage of the same site is well-attested in hunter-gather societies. Also, discarded stone tools are the major artefact left behind in the archaeological record of these sites (though, as we know from sites where organic materials are preserved, probably not the most common items in the material possessions of the group).
Let us assume a tool depository/manufacturing site for the sake of argument. Let us assume it is raided, perhaps in an early instance of unfair competitive practice. We still have the questions of 1) why so many tools are left behind by the raiders, and 2) how it is that many of the bodies are covered in sediment so rapidly that scavengers do not manage to disarticulate the skeletons.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 10, 2016, 09:08:36 PM
Quote from: Duncan Head on March 10, 2016, 11:54:03 AM
I can't quote a reference, but isn't it in fact quite common to find enormous quantities of stone tools, unfinished and defective tools, and flakes and offcuts, at what are effectively manufacturing sites?
I would expect that it is. I would also expect a manufacturing site to be quite close to a source of supply. Another question might be: if it were a manufacturing site, for whom were these hundreds of tools being made?
I know that it appears that quite large lumps of flint could be traded or at least transported and then manufactured a fair distance from the site.
Similarly in this country it's not unusual to find several kilos of bits of flint in a comparatively small radius in a region which doesn't have flint. Basically it's where people used to sit and work it.
I think one issue is we don't know how fast they used up flint stocks and had to get more
Jim
There seems a degree of uncertainty and confusion in some of the comments here. I'd recommend checking the freely-available sets of original Nature article figures and tables and the extended data figures (which are frankly invaluable for images of the recovered skeletal remains, including the still-embedded weapons) here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/fig_tab/nature16477_ft.html), and downloading the free 50-page Supplementary Information document PDF here (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/extref/nature16477-s1.pdf), which includes a fully-detailed medical post-mortem report on all the human remains recovered, as well as further details on the site, the nature of the archaeological finds, and the faunal assemblage recovered in association with the human bones.
In respect of Patrick's suggested volcanic injury hypothesis as an explanation for the bodies, there seems no evidence for any substantial quantities of volcanic rock to have been present in the immediate vicinity of the bodies, beyond miniscule amounts of obsidian flakes and tool/weapon blades, and various mineral flakes and modest-sized stone pieces typical of the basaltic and associated materials identifiable as originating in the mountains a few kilometres west of the site, in worked forms which are apparently typical of those found in other human tool-making assemblages common close-by.
The nature of some of the perimortem blunt force trauma injuries would have necessitated significant numbers of rock to small boulder sized pieces in the case of aerial volcanic objects, in order to create the observed effects, objects which should have still been lying in profusion around the bodies and well away from them, likely along with remains of animals displaying similar injuries over quite a substantial area. There is nothing to suggest any such quantities of objects were ever present, nor were any animal remains displaying this form of damage recovered, although evidence of large semi-aquatic and land animals, including hippos, crocodiles, bovid and equid mammals, such as teeth and eroded bone fragments, was located nearby.
From what I've seen of the supporting documents, the analysis appears to have reached perfectly reasonable conclusions, and while some questions remain, as they always do, there seems little reason to question that the majority of injuries observed did indeed originate from violent human activity.
Thanks, Alastair: a thorough listing of available information is always a good thing. Are we to conclude that this was a human tool-making assemblage (as opposed to an occasional camping site at which tools were freely abandoned), and if this one was, as is surmised, raided by obsidian-wielding intruders, what, we wonder, might have been the fate of other such sites in the area?
I rely on your judgement in matters of vulcanology, and given your reservations am prepared to conclude that my own thoughts in this case are astray. Still wondering about the sediment, though.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 11, 2016, 11:57:24 AMAre we to conclude that this was a human tool-making assemblage...
This seems to be the judgement of the analysis in this case. Without checking their references as regards other assemblages found nearby, I wouldn't want to say conclusively, but it seems unlikely they'd say so if it wasn't the case, given it's easily checked by those with access to the relevant journals, etc.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 11, 2016, 11:57:24 AMStill wondering about the sediment, though.
Yes, I'd have been happier if there'd been more details on the quantity, nature and potential deposition rates of the sediments in the available materials from the article. Irritatingly, the cited
Quaternary Science Reviews papers listed in the
Nature article's references are even less freely accessible than the originating paper itself online...
However, the fact the sediment seems to have been almost entirely carbonate in nature is interesting, as this will precipitate freely from the water column in sometimes copious amounts under the right conditions. Hunting around, I found there was a lot of freely available information available for Lake Turkana - try a search using "sedimentation Lake Turkana pdf". While this work concentrates on the region in and immediately around the modern Lake area, so has to be extrapolated for the ancient Lake's extent at the time of the burial of the bodies, it does give some interesting pointers - albeit it also takes a lot of wading through to find the more usefully relevant bits and pieces (and I don't pretend to have done a comprehensive review of it!).
The nature of the, often very fine-grained, carbonate material involved means it would have been easy for a lot of it to be stirred from the lake bed by, say, a dying human falling into the shallows towards the edge, which would then very rapidly resettle to cover the bodies almost completely, its modestly alkaline chemistry helping to preserve the bones, which of course fits neatly with the remarkable state of what has survived. And that's aside from fresh ongoing precipitate settling out of the water. So if the findings from the area of Lake Turkana can be used in this way, again, I wouldn't see any great problem with what the
Nature researchers published.
Thanks, Alastair; I am impressed by sediment that can settle over/deposit upon bodies more rapidly than vultures can gather and drop from the heavens or crocodiles turn up for lunch. We can give it the benefit of the doubt, although I would expect a lot more bodies of various creatures of all sorts to be preserved this way if this is indeed what happened.
Still inclined to retain a secondary hypothesis about a natural disturbance interrupting an ongoing altercation over ownership of means of production and annihilating participants on both sides.
In any event, thank you for taking the time and trouble to examine the available information and provide a thoughtful conclusion.
I've seen it done. Drop something into mud covered by shallow water and it can very quickly sink out of sight
Never timed it with relation to crocodiles but seen a Border Collie drop a dead lamb and challenged and minutes later she struggled to find it 8)
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 12:43:58 PMThanks, Alastair; I am impressed by sediment that can settle over/deposit upon bodies more rapidly than vultures can gather and drop from the heavens or crocodiles turn up for lunch. We can give it the benefit of the doubt, although I would expect a lot more bodies of various creatures of all sorts to be preserved this way if this is indeed what happened.
It's the actual mechanism of deposit and weight of the object that are key here Patrick. Dropping something into the water so it hits the muddy bed firmly stirs up so much fine sediment so fast, the water becomes too murky to see anything in - predators won't waste time hunting for something they can't detect (in-line with Jim's lamb comment, of course). The sediment then settles out at variable rates, keeping the water murky while the bodies get quickly covered. By the time it's cleared enough, there's nothing left to see. Or if there is, it gets eaten preferentially - some of the bodies in this case were incomplete. Plus a group of violent humans cavorting in triumph on the bank and in the shallows nearby will deter (or indeed kill) pretty much every potential animal predator.
An animal that dies in the water will be either eaten more or less immediately (because something attacked it for food), or if it simply died of a non-violent cause, it'll descend relatively slowly to the sediment, stirring little of it up, so will be found and eaten easily by carrion-hunters, etc. The fact the Nataruk people were probably killed violently beside or indeed just in the lagoon ironically makes their preservation this way more likely!
The palaeontological record has a lot of examples of preserved fossils whose survival seems to have proceeded by very similar mechanisms certainly, albeit of a more natural form, like underwater landslides.
We are understandably assuming the humans, or rather some of the humans, were dropped into the sediment rather than the sediment being spread over the humans. The latter would be a bit of a challenge: apparently Lake Turkana has a 'high' sedimentation rate of 1 metre per 1,000 years ...
There is still it seems to me, a problem (sorry to carry on about this, but it does look like a problem to me).
The challenge is to get the sediment to set rapidly, because otherwise no matter how well the body stirs it up and gets covered, decay will produce gases and what will shortly emerge from the sediment is what river police term a 'floater'.
In the ordinary course of events sediment will not, as far as I am aware, set with sufficient rapidity to hold bodies once the process of decay has produced sufficient gas buildup and hence lift to release the body from its temporary enclave. Indeed, if it could set with such speed, it would be hard to see how it could remain sufficiently penetrable for any length of time to accept a body in the first place. As I understand it, the sediment needs to be dried out swiftly - and, ideally, compacted at the same time - so that it sets before the body can escape with its new-found lift. The usual prerequisite for this is that the sediment needs to be heated up rapidly and on a large scale. Such a process would appear to be beyond the resources of the average tribal raider.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 08:55:48 PM
We are understandably assuming the humans, or rather some of the humans, were dropped into the sediment rather than the sediment being spread over the humans.
From the postures, it's hard to see how else they could have ended up as they were found.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 08:55:48 PMThe latter would be a bit of a challenge: apparently Lake Turkana has a 'high' sedimentation rate of 1 metre per 1,000 years ...
Well, setting aside extrapolation problems, that's assuming the bodies were covered only by a slow, steady process of material falling out of the water column with no other influences, which seems very unlikely to have been what happened here, as Jim and I have commented previously.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 08:55:48 PMThe challenge is to get the sediment to set rapidly, because otherwise no matter how well the body stirs it up and gets covered, decay will produce gases and what will shortly emerge from the sediment is what river police term a 'floater'.
Why does the sediment have to set? To get the bodies to float, aside from a sufficient depth of water, which may not have existed here (the exact physical circumstances of the lagoon aren't well-established, but it seems to have been shallow), you'd need to know more about the exact water chemistry at the time, its temperature, the nature of any organisms present in the water nearby which could have been removing the soft tissues from the start, and the state of those soft tissues on the bodies after they'd been killed by various apparently warlike means (plus any other perimortem soft tissue injuries resulting from trying to escape their attackers). Internal decomposition gases could easily seep away gradually, or otherwise escape, without the kind of build-up that creates floaters if the soft tissues were sufficiently damaged by whatever mechanism before such critical levels of gas build-up could occur, for example. Cutting open the belly, even in a small way, could be sufficient.
Forensic science is well aware there are a great many variables involved in the behaviour of dead human remains in water, many of which are not fully understood, and some of which have received relatively little investigation. That dead bodies will float in water eventually because of decomposition-gas build-up is generally considered a reliable overall point, but it is equally clear this does not happen in every case.
There's an online version of parts of Haglund & Sorg's
Advances in Forensic Taphonomy: Method, Theory, and Archaeological Perspectives (2001, CRC Press) available via Google Books, and as luck has it, the entirety of Chapter 10, "Human Remains in Water Environments", pp. 201-216, is freely available in the online version (you can't download it, however - well you can, but only as a £79.20 e-book!), which is worth reading in this respect. Book link (https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=5q1rg9Xl9CEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false), then scroll roughly 2/3 of the way down using the scroll bar to find it.
Given the sediment wasn't rock when the bones were discovered and removed recently, yet was apparently comparable all around the remains, again there's no good reason to invoke anything other than the kind of scenario already outlined - bodies fall into shallow water with force enough to stir up sufficient lying sediment to cover most of them fairly rapidly.
Again, Alastair, very well-considered response. Thank you.
Quote from: Sharur on March 13, 2016, 04:44:23 PM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 08:55:48 PMThe latter would be a bit of a challenge: apparently Lake Turkana has a 'high' sedimentation rate of 1 metre per 1,000 years ...
Well, setting aside extrapolation problems, that's assuming the bodies were covered only by a slow, steady process of material falling out of the water column with no other influences, which seems very unlikely to have been what happened here, as Jim and I have commented previously.
Precisely. It is surprising how often slow, steady deposition is invoked when considering fossilisation, and how inadequate it is as a covering mechanism. Covering has to be rapid, and relatively complete, which makes one wonder about fossil-bearing layers 50 feet deep elsewhere. A curious point about the Turkana remains is the way articulated skeletons and fragmented skeletons are distributed (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/fig_tab/nature16477_F1.html) without any apparent shallow water line.
Quote
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 12, 2016, 08:55:48 PMThe challenge is to get the sediment to set rapidly, because otherwise no matter how well the body stirs it up and gets covered, decay will produce gases and what will shortly emerge from the sediment is what river police term a 'floater'.
Why does the sediment have to set? To get the bodies to float, aside from a sufficient depth of water, which may not have existed here (the exact physical circumstances of the lagoon aren't well-established, but it seems to have been shallow), you'd need to know more about the exact water chemistry at the time, its temperature, the nature of any organisms present in the water nearby which could have been removing the soft tissues from the start, and the state of those soft tissues on the bodies after they'd been killed by various apparently warlike means (plus any other perimortem soft tissue injuries resulting from trying to escape their attackers). Internal decomposition gases could easily seep away gradually, or otherwise escape, without the kind of build-up that creates floaters if the soft tissues were sufficiently damaged by whatever mechanism before such critical levels of gas build-up could occur, for example. Cutting open the belly, even in a small way, could be sufficient.
The body I wonder about is the woman (http://in-africa.org/discoveries-at-nataruk/) with crossed arms and legs bent to place the feet about the level of the hips, believed to have been a bound victim. That skeleton was buried in sediment up to the neck with the head (and knees) missing. One wonders that a scavenger would not have unearthed a body so shallowly-buried, especially as the head and knees would initially have been available as clues to the location once the smell of decomposition had drawn necrophages to the scene. Yet the head and knees are gone as if removed with a bulldozer while the rest of the body, or at least skeleton, remains. I would have thought that the sediment would need to change composition to something harder, or at any rate significantly drier and less permeable, to inflict so clear a demarcation line.
Quote
Given the sediment wasn't rock when the bones were discovered and removed recently, yet was apparently comparable all around the remains, again there's no good reason to invoke anything other than the kind of scenario already outlined - bodies fall into shallow water with force enough to stir up sufficient lying sediment to cover most of them fairly rapidly.
My question would be at what point the sediment changed from the original glutinous mess to the dry composition in which the remains were discovered. Would not this have to happen quite fast in order to avoid mother nature's saprophytic servitors taking an interest, and for that matter to retain the corpses in any event, as decay and disarticulation would otherwise presumably follow their natural courses?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 13, 2016, 09:48:53 PMIt is surprising how often slow, steady deposition is invoked when considering fossilisation, and how inadequate it is as a covering mechanism. Covering has to be rapid, and relatively complete, which makes one wonder about fossil-bearing layers 50 feet deep elsewhere.
Hmm. I suspect you're deriving your information from sources which are a little too simplified, Patrick. There are really many more factors involved in fossilisation than just rapid coverage after burial. Such things as the nature of the depositional environment, what has been preserved as a fossil by the time it can be recovered, the chemistries and physics involved in the burial mechanism, and a lot more besides, all need to be considered too. There's also the problem of "archaeological fossils" as opposed to "palaeontological fossils", by which latter I mean remains that have survived as rock - that is, where the original substance has been chemically replaced by rock minerals and/or where it survives as a physical cast in the surrounding material - as opposed to most archaeological examples, where the materials are frequently almost exactly what they were when they were buried (with caveats regarding decomposition, natures of the materials involved, environment of preservation, etc.). "Archaeological fossils" are essentially often those still at the start of the whole fossilisation process, geologically speaking. This can create problems for commentators who are asked to quickly and simply explain things - as is often the case online and in the popular media - because the possibilities for being misunderstood are huge.
Deep palaeontological fossil layers are scarcely problematic, but do need to be considered thoroughly. The timescales involved might range from comparable preservation mechanisms persisting for millennia (e.g. anaerobic deep water environments), to a massive landslide (or pyroclastic flow if we're thinking Pompeii) which last only seconds, for example.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 13, 2016, 09:48:53 PMA curious point about the Turkana remains is the way articulated skeletons and fragmented skeletons are distributed (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7586/fig_tab/nature16477_F1.html) without any apparent shallow water line.
Not really. As noted at the start of the Supplementary Information PDF, the remains were already surfacing by deflation (http://www.britannica.com/science/deflation-geomorphology) when first located, which would have at least partially removed the evidence for shore lines. That's one of the difficulties in pinning down more precisely the nature of the lagoon the bodies were preserved in.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 13, 2016, 09:48:53 PMThe body I wonder about is the woman (http://in-africa.org/discoveries-at-nataruk/) with crossed arms and legs bent to place the feet about the level of the hips, believed to have been a bound victim. That skeleton was buried in sediment up to the neck with the head (and knees) missing. One wonders that a scavenger would not have unearthed a body so shallowly-buried, especially as the head and knees would initially have been available as clues to the location once the smell of decomposition had drawn necrophages to the scene. Yet the head and knees are gone as if removed with a bulldozer while the rest of the body, or at least skeleton, remains. I would have thought that the sediment would need to change composition to something harder, or at any rate significantly drier and less permeable, to inflict so clear a demarcation line.
This is skeleton KNM-WT 71255, which appeared to have been a pregnant woman close to full term. I'm unclear though why you think she had been buried only partially at death. Her head and knees had begun to surface relatively modernly (i.e. long after the lagoon bed surface had been removed by wind erosion, but before she was discovered and excavated), and seemed to have been damaged over time because of that alone. Page 17 of the PDF, item 3.3.4, noted although her face had been exposed before recovery and broken away, fragments of her facial bones were found on the surface nearby, for instance.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 13, 2016, 09:48:53 PMMy question would be at what point the sediment changed from the original glutinous mess to the dry composition in which the remains were discovered. Would not this have to happen quite fast in order to avoid mother nature's saprophytic servitors taking an interest, and for that matter to retain the corpses in any event, as decay and disarticulation would otherwise presumably follow their natural courses?
Again, you're treating this too basically, Patrick. Part of the sediments higher in the sub-surface soil column would have remained partially liquified until there was no longer any water above them, and as the lagoon bed surfaced and "dried out" (in a loose sense, given soils retain a degree of water at varying depths below those uppermost layers exposed to the air anyway), the local vegetation would have taken over the "new" land and covered it over. We don't really know how deep the sediments would have been over the bodies by then, nor how long - decades to centuries, maybe - may have passed before the lagoon over the bodies dried up this way.
Quote from: Sharur on March 14, 2016, 06:42:26 PM
"Archaeological fossils" are essentially often those still at the start of the whole fossilisation process, geologically speaking. This can create problems for commentators who are asked to quickly and simply explain things - as is often the case online and in the popular media - because the possibilities for being misunderstood are huge.
Dinosaur soft tissue preservation being a case in point ...
QuoteAs noted at the start of the Supplementary Information PDF, the remains were already surfacing by deflation (http://www.britannica.com/science/deflation-geomorphology) when first located, which would have at least partially removed the evidence for shore lines. That's one of the difficulties in pinning down more precisely the nature of the lagoon the bodies were preserved in.
This explains the misleading impression I had that KNM-WT 71255 had been only partially buried in sediment, having taken the article to indicate that what-you-see-is-what-they-had. My thanks.
Quote
Again, you're treating this too basically, Patrick. Part of the sediments higher in the sub-surface soil column would have remained partially liquified until there was no longer any water above them, and as the lagoon bed surfaced and "dried out" (in a loose sense, given soils retain a degree of water at varying depths below those uppermost layers exposed to the air anyway), the local vegetation would have taken over the "new" land and covered it over. We don't really know how deep the sediments would have been over the bodies by then, nor how long - decades to centuries, maybe - may have passed before the lagoon over the bodies dried up this way.
And the roots of this local vegetation would not reach down and disarrange the skeletons? They would presumably need to get down as far as standing water or at least moisture in the absence of a nearby and convenient lake.
It is also presumably considered that 'deflation' can be quite selective uncovering some bodies faster than others on account of local variation in wind patterns. Maybe so. Yet the fundamental question I still have is, if conditions were right for preservation on that particular occasion, why are we not finding more ex-lake shore skeletal remains in the vicinity?
The ubiquitous 'gravel with a patina' is also intriguing. Any thoughts about that?
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 14, 2016, 09:00:15 PMAnd the roots of this local vegetation would not reach down and disarrange the skeletons? They would presumably need to get down as far as standing water or at least moisture in the absence of a nearby and convenient lake.
This depends entirely on what the vegetation is. Not all plants have roots, many don't have roots that reach at all deep, while others simply don't need ground water. And we don't even know what the depth of the original sediment was when the lagoon ceased to be one.
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 14, 2016, 09:00:15 PMIt is also presumably considered that 'deflation' can be quite selective uncovering some bodies faster than others on account of local variation in wind patterns. Maybe so. Yet the fundamental question I still have is, if conditions were right for preservation on that particular occasion, why are we not finding more ex-lake shore skeletal remains in the vicinity?
All forms of wind erosion can have hugely variable effects, dependent on the nature of the wind and the eroding surfaces, including sub-surface aspects - the Aeolian processes Wikipedia page (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolian_processes), for example, is brief but has some helpful introductory notes and images. The process is particularly complex, because it doesn't merely remove loose material, it also redeposits it elsewhere, and can simply move it from place to place, including back to where it started.
As for "today's" fundamental question (which doesn't seem to be quite the same as any you've asked previously ;) ), well, take your pick, given the possibilities as to why something
hasn't been found can be legion! Such as: There were no more bodies to be found; Preservation conditions were suitable only in this area; Other bodies may yet appear after further erosion and/or investigation; The attackers couldn't catch anyone else to kill...
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 14, 2016, 09:00:15 PMThe ubiquitous 'gravel with a patina' is also intriguing. Any thoughts about that?
Wikipedia - Patina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina); And this would be relevant to your "fundamental question" because...?
Quote from: Sharur on March 15, 2016, 05:10:03 PM
Quote from: Patrick Waterson on March 14, 2016, 09:00:15 PMThe ubiquitous 'gravel with a patina' is also intriguing. Any thoughts about that?
Wikipedia - Patina (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patina); And this would be relevant to your "fundamental question" because...?
Because if we have significant ongoing wind erosion, what would it do to this patina? For that matter, how is the sediment eroded while leaving the layer of gravel in place? Or do I have the wrong end of the stick here?
QuoteAs for "today's" fundamental question (which doesn't seem to be quite the same as any you've asked previously ;) ), well, take your pick, given the possibilities as to why something hasn't been found can be legion! Such as: There were no more bodies to be found; Preservation conditions were suitable only in this area; Other bodies may yet appear after further erosion and/or investigation; The attackers couldn't catch anyone else to kill...
Sorry, I did not mean why do we not find more
human bodies, but rather why no rich store of
animal bodies in the same area? I am mildly sceptical about a fossilisation 'window' whose duration matches the average visiting time of the Tardis. ;)
Returning for the moment to the core of the topic, if we take this to be one of history (or prehistory)'s first preserved engagements, what can we tell about possible weapons and tactics? Spears date back a long time (https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17423-timeline-weapons-technology/) (400,000 BC being the reckoned date for the first wooden shafts with fire-hardened ends) and bows to c.20,000 BC with slings possibly putting in an appearance around the same time or not long after (slings are not good at preservation so it is hard to tell). Clubs and axes seem more nebulous, and it is a little early for swords.
Is anyone interested to try a weapons and tactics analysis from the skeletons?
Just in case anyone is interested ...
Quote"No cut-marks were observed among the skeletons from Nataruk, implying that the practice of dismemberment and trophy-taking was not part of the behavioural repertoire of these foraging communities. The lesions among the people from Nataruk are indicative of trauma caused by projectiles – supported by the presence of the actual lithic projectiles in two individuals and lesions to the neck and head consistent with sharp and non-sharp projectiles, by sharp force trauma to the face, head and hand, and by blunt force trauma to the head, thorax and possibly knees. Fractures on the hands and knees were observed on individuals who also had head (KNM-WT 71251, KNM-WT 71254), neck (KNM-WT 71 256) or thoracic injuries (KNM-WT 71259), and may be part of the single events." - Nature magazine 50-page pdf, page 11
So the learned scientists consider that projectile weapons only were used: melee as we understand it did not take place. One may note the implication that a wide variety of sharp and blunt projectile weapons were used as opposed to the fairly homogenous one or the other (either slings or bows/javelins) that one might expect from a prepared war-party.
Then there is the distribution of injuries on individuals. To keep this brief, I shall mention only two to begin with, but these should illustrate the problem.
KNM-WT 71251: an obsidian 'bladelet' scored the skull on one side, becoming embedded but not penetrating. On the other side of the skull, something hit and penetrated with the force of an 8mm bullet ("
The perforation has a circular section, missing the anterior portion, with a maximum diameter of c. 0.8 cm. The external margins are regular and sharp; a series of associated small depressed fractures are observed on the posterior margin of the lesion. The direction of impact appears to have been from a posterior direction."). In addition, both femurs were hit by something blunt with bone-cracking force, as were both tibia.
So how would this have worked? Would there have been a slinger who showed off by hitting each major leg-bone in turn and then handed over to an archer who shot one obdisian flake-headed arrow so weakly that it could not scrape its way across the skull, and then another which was so powerful as to smash its way into the brain, and, unlike its counterpart, had a head of circular section?
KNM-WT 71253: blunt object cracks cranium (original wound lost but cracks exist in surviving material); sharp objects make holes in 3rd and 7th neck vertebrae but no weapon heads found therein.
Again, do we have a show-off archer who puts two rounds into the neck of a presumably moving target just to show how clever he is? And what happened to the heads of his arrows?
Fire-hardened arrows would explain a lack of arrowhead debris within the vertebral lesions, if not why one was round-sectioned and the other diamond-sectioned. Yet why would the missile-equipped raiders use obsidian-headed and fire-hardened arrows together? Puzzling, at least to me.
Might I recommend a couple of books that relate? "Constant Battles by Steven LeBlanc and "War Before Civilization, the Myth of the Peaceful Savage" by Lawrence H. Keeley both deal with the ancient problem of human warfare.
I'm strongly inclined to side with the archaeologists on this one - it is the earliest example of warfare to date.
And not quite so old, just 2000 years BP, from Utah 90 individuals killed in what has been called warfare between groups of Basketmaker people:
http://westerndigs.org/skeletons-in-utah-cave-are-victims-of-prehistoric-war-study-says/
Dave
"While Geib and Hurst don't contest that the 90-some dead in Cave 7 were likely buried at more than one time, these results lead them to conclude that the site's most salient feature — the nearly five dozen brutalized bodies — were indeed the result of a single massacre."
And this seems a reasonable conclusion: the bodies constitute groupings from more than one time or occasion, but one particular grouping seems to have been deposited together, in a hurry and with combat-related injuries.
However they were buried in a cave, not in sediment next to a lake, so while this does indeed look like Basket People tribes doing unpleasantness unto each other, I am not sure it goes any way to explaining how the Nataruk victims came to meet their doom.