Excavation of the site of Acheinheim, Alsace, where the remains of a 6,000-year-old massacre were been discovered. NEOLITHIC. Severed arms and the martyred limbs of six individuals lying at the bottom of a pit... This is the macabre discovery made by a team of archaeologists from the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap) on the site of Echeinheim, near Strasbourg (Bas-Rhin). There, according to Philippe Lefranc, the person in charge of the excavations, a scene of massacre would have taken place in the Neolithic period, 4200 years ago before our era. It is in a vast silo, located in the heart of a fortified enclosure, that the complete remains of five adults and a teenager were unearthed. “Their bodies had numerous fractures to their lower limbs, as well as to their hands, ribs, pelvises or skulls. Their attackers have come down on them to tear them to pieces! “, explains Philippe Lefranc. That's not all. These human remains rubbed shoulders with other body fragments:four left supernumerary arms! "Which actually brings these findings to ten people, four of whom were represented by only one arm! “says the archaeologist.
In 2012, a previous "Neolithic carnage" was unearthed
Adult male with multiple fractures, found in a pit at the Neolithic site of Achenheim, Alsace.
© Michel Christen/Inrap.
This is not the first time that such traces of violence have been brought to light in France. In 2012, one of these "Neolithic carnages had already been described in the same region, in Bergheim, on a contemporary site. Eight individuals were then discovered "there too with amputated left upper limbs for seven of them!" . These isolated members intrigue researchers. Could these be war "trophies"? A hypothesis that Philippe Lefranc tends to favor for whom "meet twice these arms severed in contexts of violence can't be a coincidence ". These victims could thus have been executed captives.
Already in 2006, human skeletons discovered in Schöneck-Kilianstädten in Germany testified to an even older immolation, dating back 7000 years. The unearthed bones were found to be exclusively male, with broken legs and shattered skulls. According to specialists, these killings would have been relatively common among the populations of farmers and herders in central Europe. The European Neolithic was far from having been a quiet period... Future genetic analyzes will no doubt be able to provide new information.