Cranial fractures identified in a late Neolithic population, exhumed from the Middle Basin of Mures river - Lumea Noua - (Romania)

V. Panaitescu, M. Rosu, M. Gligor, L. Matei, A. Sirbu

Abstract: This work is based on the anthropological research carried out in the Anthropological Laboratory of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine "Mina Minovici" on human bones exhumed from the archaeological site "Lumea Noua", located in the Middle Basin of Mures river, by the archaeological team of Alba Iulia University "1 Decembrie 1918". The age of the bones was determined using the radioactive carbon (C14) method, which indicated that they belong to the period of 5570 +- 40 BP - 5650 +- 40 BP. Among the bones examined there were three skull-caps; each of which showed a depressed fracture on the left parietal bone. The fractures were of 3-3,43 cm. Also, there were abrasion areas on the external outer table of the frontal squama and on the right parietal bone of each skull-cap. A small stone hammer was found at the exhumation site, near the skull-caps; its dimensions suggest that this could have been the traumatic agent which caused the fractures. Taken together, the characteristics common to these fractures (the same location, similar dimensions, and their association with the abrasion areas) suggest that the fractures were possibly inflicted during ritual ceremony.
Keywords: late Neolithic, depressed fracture, abrasion, posible traumatic agent-stone hammer, ritual ceremonies