Lethal Interpersonal Violence in the Middle Pleistocene

Abstract

Evidence of interpersonal violence has been documented previously in Pleistocene members of the genus Homo, but only very rarely has this been posited as the possible manner of death. Here we report the earliest evidence of lethal interpersonal violence in the hominin fossil record. Cranium 17 recovered from the Sima de los Huesos Middle Pleistocene site shows two clear perimortem depression fractures on the frontal bone, interpreted as being produced by two episodes of localized blunt force trauma. The type of injuries, their location, the strong similarity of the fractures in shape and size, and the different orientations and implied trajectories of the two fractures suggest they were produced with the same object in face-to-face interpersonal conflict. Given that either of the two traumatic events was likely lethal, the presence of multiple blows implies an intention to kill. This finding shows that the lethal interpersonal violence is an ancient human behavior and has important implications for the accumulation of bodies at the site, supporting an anthropic origin.

The Sima de los Huesos Crania: Analysis of the cranial breakage patterns

“…Nevertheless, the application of these criteria to the fossil record, where soft tissues are not preserved, is more limited than in current cases. In the Pleistocene fossil record, there is some evidence of cranial and postcranial perimortem fractures, but there are only few examples that are tentatively considered cases of interpersonal violence, among which is one of the Sima de los Huesos individiuals (Cr-17) (Sala et al, 2015b). The fact that we have isolated cases documenting violence in the fossil record makes it difficult to interpret whether this behavior was habitual or rare during the Pleistocene.…”

“…Another objective is to discern whether a recently reported case of interpersonal violence in the assemblage (Sala et al, 2015b) is an isolated case or if there are other similar cases in this Middle Pleistocene population.…”

Palaeodemographics of individuals in Dinaledi Chamber using dental remains

“…17 Peri-mortem injury suggests interpersonal violence attributed to the assemblage at SdH. 35 The 49 kya El Sidrón Neanderthal site is an assemblage of at least 13 intermingled individuals that present evidence of cannibalism. 19,36 There, one infant, two juveniles, three subadults and seven adults are represented.…”

Canibalismo en el Pleistoceno. Canibalism during the Pleistocene

“…Se ha sugerido violencia interpersonal en el yacimiento del Pleistoceno medio de Sima de los Huesos, en Atapuerca (Sala et al, 2015) debido a la presencia de un cráneo con dos fracturas en el frontal. Sería el único caso de manipulación dentro de un depósito que cuenta con más de seis mil restos humanos pertenecientes a veintiocho Homo heidelbergensis.…”