York, England—Cuts found inside the skull of an Iron Age woman suggest that her brain may have been cut out before burial, according to a cnn Report. The woman’s remains were found in 2000 along with the remains of a teenage boy at the bottom of a cave in northern Scotland. Laura Castells Navarro of the University of York and her colleagues said cut marks were found in parts of the woman’s skull where ligaments connect the brain to the skull, which reinforces the idea that the brain was deliberately removed. Researchers also determined that the base of the woman’s skull may have been fractured by a deliberate, targeted impact in an attempt to reach the brain. Additionally, signs of modification were identified on one of the woman’s thighs, a humerus in each upper arm, and an ulcer on one of her forearms. It was previously suggested that the marks on the bones were made by rodents after burial, but Navarro said that the bones were smoothed by polishing. “We think that what happened happened [the arm bones] They may have been broken in half, and then cut to a very sharp edge,” he explained. However, the bone of the foot was flat and smooth. The bones were then placed in the grave in perfect anatomical position. “It was quite interesting, seeing how heavily modified they are because clearly some kind of thought and respect and care went into putting them together,” Navarro concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research ancient times. To read about Early Iron Age forts in northern Scotland, visit “Letters from Scotland: Land of the Picts“
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