The first massacre in human history

Archaeologists found fossil skeletons of 27 massacred hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago in Nataruk, near Lake Turkana, Kenya.

According to The Telegraph, the prehistoric tomb containing the crushed bones of hunter-gatherers is evidence of the first massacre in human history and the early human invasion.

The cranial bones cracked due to the force of a victim in the massacre.(Photo: The Telegraph).

Four victims, including a pregnant woman, were tied up limbs before being killed. Others have signs of being brutally tortured and murdered, and some people still have axes and arrows on their heads. The results of the study are published Jan. 20 in the journal Nature.

The cause of the invasion is still controversial. Many archaeologists believe that most hunters - gatherers live peacefully and do not have to fight with each other until after the agricultural revolution, when the tribes vie each other's land and property. Previously, the earliest tomb of war victims was found in Darmstadt, Germany, dating back to about 5,000 BC.

In the tomb, 27 skeletons consist of at least 8 women and 6 children, 12 relatively complete skeletons and signs of death due to clear violence, with the skull, smashed cheeks, hands, ribs, knees fracture and wound by the arrow in the neck. The arrowheads are inserted in the skull and chest of two men. Some skeletons are in a recumbent position with a deformed face, possibly due to wooden sticks.

The skeleton of a man showing signs of being beaten with wooden sticks.(Photo: The Telegraph).

According to the team, the victims were a prehistoric tribe attacked and killed by a group of tribes. The massacre is likely to take place 9,500 - 10,500 years ago, at the start of the All New Year after the last Ice Age. At that time, the area around Nataruk was a fertile lakeside area bordering the marshes and forests, providing abundant water and food.

"The massacre in Nataruk can be a result of the intention to plunder resources - territory, women, children, food. It happens in the same way as in the agricultural society that produces food later, The attack on violence became part of life, " The Telegraph quoted Dr. Marta Mirazón Lahr of the Center for Human Evolution Research in Cambridge, England, the lead author of the study.