Nataruk

Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, is the site of an archaeological investigation which uncovered the remains of 27 people. It dates between 9,500 and 10,500 BP (7, 550–8, 550 BC). The remains have garnered wide media attention for possible bioarchaeological evidence of interpersonal violence, i.e. prehistoric warfare. According to the Nature article published by Dr. Mirazón Lahr and colleagues, the skeletons present the earliest evidence for intergroup violence among hunting-foraging populations, which they interpret as a "massacre": the remains of adults and six children show signs of a violent end, having been clubbed or stabbed and left to die without burial. Two of the male remains had stone projectile tips lodged in the skull and thorax. However, a 'Brief Communication Arising' published in Nature by Christopher Stojanowski and colleagues calls into question much of the alleged evidence of a "massacre". Their critique centers on two main points. First, these authors suggest that much of the evidence of peri-mortem trauma identified by Mirazón Lahr is equally - if not more - likely to have occurred after deposition; that is, after the skeletons were buried, intentionally or otherwise. Second, Stojanowski disagrees over the interpretation of the site formation processes. Where Mirazón Lahr sees little evidence for intentional burial at the site, Stojanowski argues that the bod

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).