Ancient Massacre Uncovered in Croatia
Genetic analysis provides clarity and also prompts further questions about an ancient massacre in Potočani, Croatia, in a study published on March 10, 2021, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mario Novak from the Institute for Anthropological Research, Croatia, Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna, Austria, David Reich from Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, USA, and colleagues.
To date, anthropological and genomic analysis of early massacres has revealed cases where the victims were plausibly killed due to battle, in-versus-out-group conflicts (such as targeting of specific families or recent migrants), or religious ritual. The massacre of 41 individuals in Potočani, Croatia, 6,200 years ago described in this study, one of the largest-scale genetic analyses of an ancient massacre to date, marks an instance of indiscriminate killing at a large scale.
The authors were able to retrieve genomic data from the bones of 38 of the 41 individuals found buried in a mass grave at Potočani, Croatia, radiocarbon dated to 4,200 years cal BCE and belonging to the Lasinja culture of the Middle Eneolithic (Copper Age).
Diverse Victims Suggest Indiscriminate Killing
A combination of genetic and morphological analysis revealed the grave held individuals from both sexes (21 males and 20 females) and spanning age groups: over half of the sample (21) consisted of subadults (two younger children aged between two and five years, nine older children aged between six and 10 years, and 10 adolescents aged between 11 and 17 years. Of the remaining 20 adults, 14 individuals were aged between 18 and 35 years and five between 36 and 50 years, and one adult’s age at death could not be determined accurately.
The genetic analysis also revealed that while some individuals in the grave were linked by family ties (eg a younger man, his two young daughters, and his nephew (brother’s son) were all found in the pit), the majority of individuals (70 percent) were unrelated and instead appear to be a sample of what was clearly a large pastoral population.
Interestingly, though not linked in most cases by close kin-ties, genetic evidence shows the individuals found in this grave all shared homogenous ancestry (predominantly Anatolian Neolithic with ~9% Western European hunter-gatherer ancestry), indicating the local population was large and stable — and making it unlikely that the massacre was linked to the arrival of a new, genetically-unrelated group.
Potential Causes: Climate or Population Stress
Though there’s no way to know for sure with the evidence currently available, the authors suggest a possible reason for the massacre as potentially due to a combination of adverse climactic conditions and/or a significant increase in population size.
The results show that large-scale indiscriminate killing isn’t just restricted to modern and historic periods but was also a significant process in pre-state societies. The authors note further genetic analysis of ancient massacre sites will be necessary to determine just how frequently this type of violence occurred in the past.
The authors add: “A prehistoric massacre 6000 years ago in present-day Croatia: Ancient DNA reveals new insights about the 41 victims.”
Reference: “Genome-wide analysis of nearly all the victims of a 6200 year old massacre” by Mario Novak, Iñigo Olalde, Harald Ringbauer, Nadin Rohland, James Ahern, Jacqueline Balen, Ivor Janković, Hrvoje Potrebica, Ron Pinhasi and David Reich, 10 March 2021, PLoS ONE.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0247332
Funding: M.N., I.J. and J.B. were supported by the Croatian Science Fund grant HRZZ IP-2016-06-1450. I.O. was supported by a fellowship from “la Caixa” Foundation (ID 100010434), code LCF/BQ/PI19/11690004. D.R. was supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIGMS GM100233), the John Templeton Foundation (grant 61220), and the Paul Allen Foundation (Allen Discovery Center grant), and is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The ancient DNA work was funded by NIH (NIGMS) grant GM100233, the Paul Allen Foundation, the John Templeton Foundation grant 61220 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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6 Comments
Gruesome
Whatever massacre these prehistoric people did to their neighbors, it’s merely a scintilla of a massacre compared to the millions upon millions who died in the two World Wars. Unfortunately.
WW1 and WW2 are certainly up there in terms of number of people killed.
But massacres can also be measured by the percentage of a group that were wiped out. A complete genocide would be 100% by that measure. Such massacres are likely undercounted because no one was left to tell the tale.
Lots of studies are being done about how Neanderthals went extinct. I’m not sure why the most likely explanation is not entertained. That they were bludgeoned to death. By us.
Why is it that the historic massacres carried out by the Communist rulers of Soviet Russia from the 1920s to the 1950s during Stalins despotic reign are barely mentioned by left wing historians ,lecturers and others of similar persuasion .Courses in Universities in Western Europe ,UK and USA cover the Holocaust in detail but not the deaths of over 100,000,000 human beings at the hands of the Soviet Communists .Usually little is said about these atrocities if anything..
Odd that a comment refuting the notion that 100 000 000 human beings were killed by Soviet Communists doesn’t get published, Actually, I made two comments to this effect. As the maximum Soviet population in Stalin’s time was at best 170 million in 1945 rising from 147 million in 1922 one would have thought that SciTech Daily would have allowed the correction.
Hi Rob,
Sorry for the trouble. Unfortunately some comments get auto-removed by our spam filter for using political words / potentially violent words such as “kill” even if the context isn’t offensive. This definitely isn’t ideal, but otherwise our website will be demonetized by google. Once again, sorry for the inconvenience.