Indianos do Brasil

Grisly Discovery: 9,000-Year-Old Decapitated Skull Covered in Amputated Hands

By Charles Q. Choi 

Under limestone slabs in a cave in Brazil, scientists made a ghoulish new discovery: a decapitated skull covered in amputated hands.

These 9,000-year-old bones may be evidence of the oldest known case of ritual beheading in the New World, raising new questions as to how this grisly practice began in the Americas, the researchers said in a new study.

Decapitation was likely common in the New World, according to the scientists. For example, in South America, heads of defeated enemies were often used as war trophies — the Arara people in the Brazilian Amazon used skulls of defeated enemies as musical instruments, the Inca turned skulls into drinking jars, and the Jivaro people of Ecuador shrunk heads to imprison the souls of foes. The Uru-Uru Chipaya people in Bolivia also once employed skulls in modified Christian rituals, and the Chimú culture in Peru incorporated decapitation as a standard procedure in human sacrifices. [See photos of the 9,000-year-old decapitated skull and other remains]

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