Archaeologists discover ancient Californians beheaded in strange burial ritual

Archaeologists don't believe that violence was the cause of death for a number of headless skeletons discovered at an ancient gravesite in Marsh Creek, California — the beheadings, in fact, were likely a way of honoring the dead, Ancient Origins reports. The community in Marsh Creek, which lived around 3,000 or 4,000 years ago (with some artifacts dating back 7,000 years), apparently had a practice of removing heads, or pieces of skull, to leave in the graves of other relatives.

Of the 130 burials archaeologists found, seven were without heads — two men, two women, and three whose sex was undetermined. Eight of the burials were discovered with a second skull in the grave, with two of those including skullcaps that were possibly used as bowls. Researchers suspect that some of the missing heads belonged to parents who died, and whose skulls were placed in their children's graves after the children also later died.

What is especially unusual about the March Creek site is that none of the skeletons show signs of violent deaths, which were extremely common for Native Americans in the region during that time. While a study found that one in 15 people died from a wound in prehistoric California — by spear, arrow, or club — the only damage the Marsh Creek bodies appeared to have suffered was on the handful of occasions where their heads were removed after death.

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