The Nataruk massacre, about 10,000 BP

[Duncan Head]

Researchers 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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

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.

[Jim Webster]

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

[Duncan Head]

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)

[Patrick Waterson]

These I wondered about also.  The 'obsidian knife' is degraded to a 'small projectile' in the accompanying photograph, 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 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, 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.

[Erpingham]

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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

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.

[Duncan Head]

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?

[Erpingham]

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).

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

[Patrick Waterson]

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?

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.

[Jim Webster]

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

[Sharur]

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, and downloading the free 50-page Supplementary Information document PDF here, 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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.

[Sharur]

Are 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.

Still 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.

[Patrick Waterson]

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.