In northern Spain about 430,000 years ago, the bodies of at least 28 early humans found their way to the bottom of a 43-foot-deep shaft in the bedrock that archaeologists call Sima de los Huesos, or “Pit of the Bones.” They were not humans, but rather evolutionary precursors of Neanderthals, which modern scientists have named Homo heidelbergensis. Several explanations have been proposed: Carnivores might have dragged them there, or perhaps 28 separate hapless hominins accidentally fell down the shaft. But we know at least one was a murder victim!
Nohemi Sala, a paleoanthropologist, was studying the breakage pattern of some of the bones from Sima de los Huesos. She noticed something a bit unusual. Most breaks had occurred over the millennia that the bones sat in the ground, but one skull had some very distinctive damage. It appeared to Sala that two of the breaks, on the forehead, had happened while the person was alive. But there were no signs the breaks healed either. Each break was likely made with a blunt object. And either would have been deadly on its own – meaning this wasn’t a hunting accident (which would have had just one break) or a bad suicide attempt (for the same reason). Put together, it suggests the person was attacked, and died from the assault. Often, cause of death is not clear just from bones, so one of the skeletons having clearly been a murder victim does suggest that others in the pit might have meet untimely ends, as well. What does this say about Homo heidelbergensis? Sala says the evidence is both good and bad. There is a capacity for violence there. But there is also care for the dead. The murder victim was not left where he fell, but removed and buried where others had been buried before him
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