Iron Age woman likely had her brains scooped out before burial, study suggests

(CNN) — An Iron Age Scottish woman likely had her brains scooped out after she died as part of her burial, according to a new study that sheds further light on the complex funerary rites of this prehistoric culture.

Researchers from the UK and US found that this individual, most likely over the age of 30, had cuts on the inside of her skull.

These straight and parallel incisions were probably caused by “deliberate scratching or cutting” with a “sharp” tool, according to the study published in the journal Antiquity.

The base of her cranium was also broken in an “unusual” way, suggesting that the fracture was the result of “an intentional targeted impact,” the researchers noted.

Together, the fracture and the cutmarks “are suggestive of deliberate removal of the brain soon after the death of this individual,” they said.

The cutmarks were “also in the part of the cranium where you have ligaments attaching the brain to the skull, so it would make sense that you would want to scratch those if the intent is to remove the brain,” lead study author and archaeologist Laura Castells Navarro, a postdoctoral research associate at the UK’s University of York, told CNN Tuesday.

She added that the “easiest way to access” the brain while preserving the cranium “is the base of the skull,” and the break looked “very, very fresh.”

The researchers also found that at least four of the woman’s long bones – femur (or thigh bone), humerus from both upper arms and ulna from the forearm – were modified before she was laid to rest.

While an initial 2003 report suggested the bones may have been gnawed by rodents, Navarro said marks by rodents are “never smooth” and “what we are seeing is an actual polishing of the remains.”

“We think that what happened was that they (the bones) may have been snapped in half, and then they had been whittled to a very sharp edge” and tapered to an elongated point, she added.

This is the case with the ulna and the humeri. The femur, however, had a flat and smooth finish, according to the study.

The researchers are still unsure of the precise motivations for this practice – whether it was a sign of respect for a valued member of the community or “purposefully abusive treatment of the body of an outsider or low status individual,” the study said.

However, despite these modifications, the four bones were placed back in the grave in their correct anatomical position, which suggests a sign of “reverence rather than denigration,” the study added.

“That was quite interesting, given how heavily modified they have been because clearly there has been some kind of thought and respect and care on putting them together,” as well as “an insane knowledge of anatomy,” Navarro said.

The body is one of two discovered in 2000 underneath a cairn – a manmade heap of stones usually found on mountainsides – on the northern tip of the Scottish mainland.

The other, likely a young male who was about 15 years old when he died, did not appear to have experienced any “complex patterns of trauma,” according to the study.

Researchers carried out DNA analysis, as well as radiocarbon dating and chemical analysis of the molar teeth of the two individuals.

The woman and the boy were likely related and could have been as close as maternal second cousins, sharing great-grandparents. They both likely died between 50 BC and 70 AD, although and the individuals may not have been buried at the same time.

The researchers said that, while the treatment of the woman’s remains “cannot be paralleled in detail,” there is a lot of evidence of the modification, curation and circulation of human remains during that time period.

While there are “a couple of examples of cemeteries in Scotland” at the time, “most of the remains are found in very unlikely places, like in a house, at the door of the house, in pits,” natural caves and stone cairns, Navarro said.

Modified body parts have been found in other parts of the region, where there was a tradition of getting fragments of skulls and making a few holes in them that they potentially used to hang them, Navarro said, adding that cut marks to open up a cranium have been found on a skeleton at another site.

So while the finding in this study is “very unique” and “unusual,” Navarro said “it does fit into a wider interaction between living and the dead, and this memorialization and caring of their ancestors and remains” in the Iron Age in the British Isles.

“Iron Age funerary practices are absolutely phenomenal and you really need to be very open-minded because they could come up with all sorts of things,” she continued.

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