Iron Age People In Spain Drove Nails Through The Skulls Of The Dead And Put Them On Display For Different Reasons
In ancient times, saying goodbye to the dead was anything but simple. Many cultures practiced elaborate rituals to honor lost loved ones or to scorn their enemies.
Prehistoric people in Spain severed the heads of the dead, drove giant nails through their skulls, and put them on display for different reasons: to intimidate enemies and to celebrate the community’s ancestors.
In a new study, a team of researchers analyzed seven skulls from two archaeological sites, Puig Castellar and Ullastret, on the southeast coast of the Iberian Peninsula to determine where the beheaded people came from.
“Our premise in approaching the study was that if they were war trophies, they would not come from the sites analyzed, while if they were venerated individuals, these would most likely be local,” said Rubén de la Fuente-Seoane, the first author of the study and an archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
The research team used strontium isotope analysis to identify which of the seven individuals were local. The ratio of different isotopes preserved in bones and teeth can reflect the geographical origins of the food and water a person ate and drank.
The team learned that three of the four severed heads at Puig Castellar came from nonlocal people. The skulls were found along the inner wall that surrounded the settlement, indicating that they were displayed to intimidate enemies and assert power.
Meanwhile, only one of the three skulls at Ullastret came from a nonlocal person. Two of them were found in a street, suggesting that they were displayed inside or outside of houses as a way to honor the deceased. The third skull was discovered on one of the settlement’s external walls, so it may represent a war trophy.
The sites are about 60 miles apart, and they both used to host ancient cities that were abandoned shortly after the Second Punic War and the arrival of the Romans around the end of the 3rd century B.C.
“This result suggests that the practice of severed heads was applied in a different way at each site,” said de la Fuente-Seoane.
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“It suggests that the selection of individuals for the severed heads ritual was more complex than initially thought.”
These findings align with historical accounts from the Greeks and Romans. According to ancient authors, the Gauls of southern France would sever the heads of their enemies and store them in boxes. In addition, Iberian mercenaries would carry the impaled heads of their foes on spears.
Although the ritual seems to have been performed differently at various Iron Age Iberian sites, further research is required in order to confirm this.
The details of the full study were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
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