{"id":4361,"date":"2015-09-23T14:13:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-23T18:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/?p=4361"},"modified":"2015-10-02T11:16:14","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:16:14","slug":"9000-year-old-ritual-decapitation-found","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/9000-year-old-ritual-decapitation-found\/","title":{"rendered":"9,000 year-old ritual decapitation found"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_4362\" style=\"width: 663px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4362\" class=\"wp-image-4362\" src=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web-1024x430.jpg\" alt=\"An illustration showing the arrangement of the amputated hands on the skull, and the locations of V-shaped marks. (Drawing by Gil Tokyo)\" width=\"653\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web-1024x430.jpg 1024w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web-300x126.jpg 300w, http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web.jpg 1440w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 653px) 100vw, 653px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4362\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An illustration showing the arrangement of the amputated hands on the skull, and the locations of V-shaped marks. (Drawing by Gil Tokyo)<\/p><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A 9,000 year-old ritualized decapitation may be the oldest case found in the New World, according to researchers, leading to a re-evaluation of the origins and geographic dispersion of the practice. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The remains, a skull, two amputated hands, and several vertebrae, were found laid out in a way suggesting that they were likely part of a sophisticated mortuary ritual, not from trophy-taking warriors. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The remains were found in east-central Brazil in 2007, and dated to approximately 9,000 years ago. The amputated hands were laid over the face of the skull in opposite directions, and small V-shaped cut marks were found on the jaw and one of the vertebra. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"An illustration showing the arrangement of the amputated hands on the skull, and the locations of V-shaped marks. (Drawing by Gil Tokyo)\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Original research paper<\/span><\/a>\u00a0published in <em>PLOS ONE<\/em>\u00a0on <strong>September 23<\/strong><span class=\"aBn\" tabindex=\"0\" data-term=\"goog_453723367\"><span class=\"aQJ\"><strong>, 2015<\/strong>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><em><strong>Names and affiliations of selected\u00a0author<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<h4><strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Andr\u00e9 Strauss, Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A 9,000 year-old ritualized decapitation may be the oldest case found in the New World, according to researchers, leading to a re-evaluation of the origins and geographic dispersion of the practice. The remains, a skull, two amputated hands, and several vertebrae, were found laid out in a way suggesting that they were likely part of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4362,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[1851,51,1647],"class_list":["post-4361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-paper-of-interest","tag-anthropology","tag-health","tag-human-behaviour"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/99500_web.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4DqbN-18l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4363,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions\/4363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sciencemediacentre.ca\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}