Brain removal likely used in Iron Age Scottish burial
Popular Science...
A pair of related human skeletons discovered in northwest Scotland are offering archaeologists a rare glimpse into Iron Age familial relationships and burial practices. And based on findings detailed in the journal Antiquity, at least some of those ancient funerary rituals involved brain removal and bone sharpening.
While researchers know a lot about the communities of Iron Age Britain (800 BCE–43 CE), not quite as much is known about the actual people who lived there. The region’s moist environmental conditions ensure that bodies decompose far more quickly than in other parts of the world. Northwest Scotland is a different situation, however. Burial practices inside stone cairns helped safeguard at least some skeletal remains from the elements.
“We knew that in the northwest of Scotland, including the Northern and Western Isles, the circulation and deposition of human remains were particularly prominent,” Laura Castells Navarro, a study co-author and University of York archaeologist, said in a statement.
Navarro’s team has spent years examining a pair of individuals excavated a few miles inland from the Norwegian Sea near Loch Borralie. Using osteology (the study of bones)as well as isotopic and DNA analysis, they successfully identified the pair as an adult female and a juvenile male who likely died between 50 BCE and 70 CE. This timeline places them at a pivotal era just before the Romans invaded southern and eastern Scotland in 79 CE.
Genetic material confirmed the individuals are most likely maternal second cousins, although their burial site is far from their original homes. Isotopic analysis indicates that they grew up about 50 miles southeast of Loch Borralie.Additional evidence indicates they share genes with people from Orkney (about 110 miles northeast of the loch) and Applecross, about140 miles to the southwest.
“More broadly, our research shows that prehistoric maritime communities periodically moved around the north coast and Northern Isles of Scotland, possibly in small groups”, said Castells Navarro, adding that this migration facilitated the spread of cultural traditions and rituals.
Some of those practices are dramatically visible in the adult woman’s remains. Scratches inside her cranium point to the removal of her brain, while long bones like the humeri, femur, and ulna were carved down to sharp points. Although the exact motivations for these practices are still difficult to discern, they illustrate complex societal belief structures and observances.
“The care with which she was reassembled and deposited in the cairn possibly suggests she commanded a level of reverence and respect by her community,” Castells Navarro said, adding the remains highlight Iron Age society’s “continued interaction between the living and the dead.”
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