An international team of experts has helped shed new light on one of the largest prehistoric mass killing events, by studying ancient proteins preserved in human tooth enamel for around 2800 years.
Through the detection of specific protein fragments in tooth enamel samples using cutting-edge analytical methods, researchers at the University of Nottingham helped confirm the majority of the more than 77 individuals found in the mass grave, located in the south Carpathian Basin, were women and children. The predominance of women and younger individuals in the grave is exceptional in European prehistory, adding a new dimension to understanding Iron Age violence.
The study, which is published in Nature Human Behaviour, was jointly led by experts from University College Dublin, the Universities of Edinburgh, Copenhagen, Leiden, Kiel and the Museum of Vojvodina with contributions from scholars across Europe.
Overall, the study provides new evidence that the people buried together in the single-event mass grave experienced violent deaths, including bludgeoning and stabbing. Despite this, the site of the Gomolava burials, in Northern Serbia, showed significant investment of time and resources in its preparation, suggesting it may have been made a place for remembrance of the killings. The grave was found in a protected location and included personal items such as jewelry and bronze ornaments, ceramic drinking vessels, as well as the bones of up to 100 animals.
Genetic and isotope analysis carried out by the international team revealed very few victims were related to each other and that they also grew up in different settlements. The collective violence was most likely from targeted killing as part of a large-scale conflict that many settlements were caught up in.
The Nottingham team, Professor Rob Layfield and research technician Barry Shaw from the School of Life Sciences, and Professor Neil Oldham from the School of Chemistry, focused their analyses on small fragments of proteins entrapped in the ancient tooth enamel. These hold molecular signatures from the X and Y chromosomes but are present at such low levels that powerful detection methods are needed to read the information.
The challenge was recovering molecular information from samples that were thousands of years old, but fortunately tooth enamel, the hardest substance in the human body, provides incredible protein preservation. In fact, other researchers have been able to analyse proteins that are much older, in some cased more than a million years old. Part of our research vision is to develop and simplify methods needed to analyse ancient proteins, so they are more accessible to the wider archaeology community, to address similar questions of major historical significance."
Dr Linda Fibiger, of the University of Edinburgh's School of History, Classics and Archaeology highlighted the broader significance of the study: "The brutal killings and subsequent commemorating of the event can both be read as a powerful bid to balance power relations and assert dominance over land and resources. The study sheds new light on targeted gender and age selective killings as a way of enacting mass violence and assertion of power in prehistoric Europe."
The research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) grant "The Fall of 1200 BC". The Nottingham work was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), through the Research Infrastructure for Conservation and Heritage Science (RICHeS) programme.
