Emily Chan
For at least 2,000 years, prehistoric people practiced a particularly violent form of human sacrificial rituals. Evidence of the tradition was unearthed during an excavation of a Neolithic burial in France. The tomb was discovered in Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, a Middle Neolithic gathering site located in Rhône Valley.
Researchers from the French Research Institute on East Asia dug up the remains of three women. Two of them were buried in unusual positions.
The oldest individual, labeled as Woman 1, was found in the center of the tomb, lying on her left side. Women 2 and 3 were placed beneath an overhang.
The second woman was lying on her back, and her lower limbs were bent. Additionally, a grindstone fragment was arranged on her skull.
The third woman was lying flat on her stomach with her neck resting on the second woman’s thorax. Her positioning indicated that they may have been buried while they were still alive.
According to the researchers, it appeared that Women 2 and 3 were killed in a sacrificial ritual that included asphyxiation.
A method called “homicidal ligature strangulation” may have been used, which involves binding victims at the throat and ankles with rope, leaving them lying with their chests down and their backs up.
“Self-strangulation becomes inevitable due to the forced position of the legs,” wrote the researchers in the study. “Currently, this torture, known as incaprettamento, is associated with the Italian Mafia and is sometimes used to punish persons perceived as traitors.”
The women were sacrificed sometime between 4000 and 3500 B.C. and likely died from “forced positional asphyxia,” which occurs when a victim is arranged in a position they can’t get out of that obstructs their breathing.
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