Number 10.
Head on a spike construction workers got the shock of a lifetime in sweden when they found some skulls in a peat bog that had been smashed but it wasn't recent the bones date back to the stone age and there was a lot more to this disturbing discovery than meets the eye when a new railway line was to be constructed for freight trains moving through the area construction workers uncovered the grisly remains and called in the archaeologists they have now turned up not only smashed heads but heads on skewers and also fragments from animals and tools made from bone and horn the human heads found skewered on some poles and a pile of rocks was kind of reminiscent of ivan the terrible but 8 000 years ago this place used to be a pond and over time the pond turned into a peat marsh frederick hallgreen the project leader for the excavation said all signs point to some kind of strange ritual activity going on here with the stone age people these skulls were detached from the bodies put on spikes and then buried with great care archaeologists found the skulls of 10 people in the boggy sediment which marks the first evidence of mesolithic hunter-gatherers mounting human skulls on stakes some of these skulls show signs of trauma but then the injuries showed signs of healing after they had gotten hit in the head someone had taken care of them but how their heads ended up on stakes is unclear swedish forensic scientists are working on reconstructing the faces and clothing of some of these people to see what they might have looked like so long ago even stranger is that the bodies were buried underneath a burial mound which they didn't really use in sweden until way later in the iron age then only until the end of the viking era nobody can understand why these stone age citizens who had likely been hunters and gatherers had gone through all the trouble of creating complex burial mounds and then go and impale some heads on some poles it's all very confusing.
Number 9.
Aztec slaughter archaeologists working in mexico have recovered the ghoulish remains of spaniards murdered by the aztecs the story is one of the most brutal where both sides committed horrible crimes the aztecs captured a convoy of spaniards traveling with a group of several hundred indigenous allies the aztecs captured the entire convoy and then cannibalize them literally gnawing on the flesh of the spanish invaders and their treacherous allies in response hernan cortes massacred a group of aztec women and children this isn't just a story either as it's backed up by archaeological evidence researchers have discovered proof that over the course of eight months the spanish and their allies were offered as sacrifices to the aztec gods at the city of tekowake archaeologists have found the remains of male and female prisoners who were strung up on racks had their heads cut off and made part of aztec skull towers bone analysis even showed that some of these spanish women had been sacrificed while pregnant as the aztecs made sacrifices to their blood thirsty gods the catholic spaniards looked upon this as an offense against god himself and vowed to defeat these people once and for all.
Number 8.
Viking slave graves a group of viking graves recently discovered in norway has given researchers a gruesome look into how these seafaring warriors used to treat their slaves the graves belonged to slaves who had been beheaded and then buried with their masters approximately 10 ancient people were discovered in multiple graves with either two or three bodies sharing a single plot analysis of the human remains has shown that the people who were buried without their heads had eaten a very different diet from those who weren't decapitated elise naumann from the university of oslo says that the beheaded people were slaves offered as grave gifts to be buried alongside prominent members of society this explains why the diets were so different now for the ugly part that nobody wants to talk about the vikings are often admired for being fierce raiders from between around the year 700 to 1200 but the truth is that they were also vicious killers who often stole people from the places they raided and kept them as slaves that's why everyone was so afraid of them they're cool if they're on your side if you're a monk living in some monastery on the cliff watching them come towards you then you wouldn't be so excited to see them the other side of the truth is that vikings weren't actually just barbarians who spent all their time plundering most of them were ordinary farmers who relied on the slaves brought back by their warriors to keep their agricultural gears turning and yes the vikings treated their slaves like absolute garbage thanks to these new burials now we know that they even sacrificed slaves and had them buried with their masters to assist them beyond death.
Number 7.
Steak through the heart the skeleton of a vampire has been discovered in bulgaria with a stake driven right through its heart the skeleton was found in the ruins of an ancient city by a local bulgarian archaeologist the dead person died sometime in his 40s or 50s and had gotten a metal stake bashed through his chest probably to prevent him from rising from the dead even if this guy wasn't really a vampire who feasted on human flesh the locals most certainly thought he was it was common practice in medieval times to drive a metal spike through a corpse to stop it from waking up later and seeking revenge on the living this most recent creepy discovery was made by professor nikolai ofcharov in the ruins of perparicon the city itself was discovered around 20 years ago and was originally inhabited 7 000 years ago in 5000 bc the city was once home to the famous temple of dionysus dedicated to the greek god of wine and fertility but the city was also home to several impressive fortresses a large sanctuary and multiple dead vampires other than just having the steak driven through his heart this guy also had his left leg amputated below the knee and placed beside his body there were two other graves like this discovered in bulgaria in 2012 and 2013 though they were at a different site and not at all related as of right now researchers have found roughly 100 vampire skeletons throughout bulgaria making ancient bulgaria a whole lot more paranormal than the transylvanian region of romania to the north.
Number 6.
Mummy lake mesa verde national park in colorado is home to the most fascinating ancient city anywhere in the united states of america this place was lived in 1 000 years ago by the ancestral puebloans centuries before christopher columbus ever landed they built their city into the wall of a great cliff carving their houses out of the stone and then vanishing mysteriously without leaving a trace but a new discovery in the mesa verde park has nothing to do with the city itself but rather a lake that may have had a scary association with ancient rituals it's called mummy lake and it's a circular pitch that archaeologists used to think was a water reservoir for the people living in the city it was not held to hold water but rituals more recent studies of the lake revealed that what people used to think were canals were actually ancient footpaths that led to the lake from a few key religious structures a shrine house and a cliff palace between the years 900 and 1200 the locals may have been using the lake in their religious ceremonies it could have been used as a depository for the dead or perhaps where sacrifices were offered to the gods maybe even a ball court scientists don't know exactly what it was used for but it definitely held great value to the puebloans.
Number 5.
Ancient brain surgery a case of prehistoric surgery dating back 5 000 years has shocked scientists the discovery came during excavations near a small village in crimea anthropologists working with the institute of archaeology of the russian academy of sciences uncovered the skull of a man who had undergone cranial surgery at the site of the excavations 18 burials were discovered from between the bronze age and the time that the scythians ruled the region the victim of the surgery was among these remains and was in his 20s when he died according to the researchers the surgeon who had operated on him did so with shocking precision the surgeon scraped a huge area of bone away from the rest of the skull leaving a thin layer less than one millimeter thick even more amazing is that the surgeon had done this using stone instruments imagine getting brain surgery and the doctors are using stone tools this type of operation is known as a treponation and it probably killed him the bone surface showed no signs of any healing meaning the man probably died in the days following the surgery the surgery had likely been an attempt to relieve serious headaches or cure some other sort of affliction that remains unknown.
Number 4.
Adidas boots mummy an ancient mummy was discovered with a pair of very old boots dated back over 1000 years this is one of the stranger discoveries that's been made in recent times the mummy was actually a mongolian seamstress who was buried with four changes of clothing a professional sewing kit the head of a horse and the head of a ram she was also discovered wearing a fine pair of boots that have been compared to modern adidas shoes they're red and stripey they're actually quite fashionable despite their age and they wouldn't even look that out of place on someone's feet today archaeologists have no way of knowing exactly who this woman was during her life but she was probably the ancient equivalent of a high-end fashion designer she also suffered a brutal death scientists discovered a significant head injury that may have killed her it seems that sometime during the 10th century deep in the altai mountains of mongolia the seamstress was hit in the skull with something and then buried she may have fallen down and hit her head on a rock or somebody might have bludgeoned her to death and then tried to steal her wares there's no way of knowing for sure what we do know is that she was such a valued member of society that when her corpse was found she was given an extremely elaborate burial.
Number 3.
North york skeletons a collection of human skeletons found inside the dark and spooky caves of the north york moors in the united kingdom were likely the victims of an obscure ritual sacrifice more than 2 000 years ago these human remains were first found in the early 19th century with major excavations taking place in the 1950s at the time researchers knew the skeletons had experienced some sort of serious trauma however it wasn't until recently that a more detailed investigation was able to get done at which point scientists realized one of the dead people had been scalped and all of them had experienced significant trauma the caves in north york were occupied beginning about 4 500 years ago with humans finally moving out of the cave sometime after the roman occupation of britain in the 5th century a.d we really did love living in our caves the skeletons in terms of their injuries have been pretty badly mutilated researchers discovered trauma in the jawbone of one skull suggesting he had been bashed with a sharp instrument in fact signs of violence were found on all the skeletons cut marks along the top of the cranium suggest scalping however this kind of thing wasn't that popular in britain and so it left archaeologists a little shaken and surprised because they don't know why the people were sacrificed or who would even have done such a thing except maybe a group of witches.
Number 2.
Bone tools scientists have discovered proof that a pre-aztec civilization in mexico used the bones of their dead relatives to fashion all kinds of everyday items from buttons to combs spatulas and even everyday utensils five thousand bone fragments were taken from beneath the ancient city of teotihuacan near mexico city and analyzed these were mostly femors shin bones and human skulls a large majority of them had been turned into household items the people who lived at teotihuacan before the aztecs ever occupied the city removed the flesh and muscles from the bones using stone knives they did this as quickly after death as possible as the body needed to be fresh so that the bones were still strong this civilization who lived in teotihuacan between 100 bc and 650 a.d also practiced human sacrifice of course they had no fear of death even burying their own loved ones underneath the foundations of their houses after cutting them apart and turning their bones into things like knives forks and spoons.
Number 1.
Ancient bear skull a rather spooky bear skull dated to be 35 000 years old may just be the first solid evidence of humans hunting down cave bears and eating them the giant skull was found during a siberian cave excavation by russian paleontologists when they examined the bears skull they identified a small hole at the back that they say may have been the result of a spear an early human from the place-to-scene era may have snuck up and stabbed the bear in the head while it was asleep this makes sense too seeing as stealth would really be the only way an ancient human could take down a monstrous cave bear probably while it was hibernating cave bears are extinct now but used to live in the caverns and caves of northern eurasia some scientists say they were hunted to extinction over a period of about 5 000 years by the earliest homo sapien hunters who moved into the region this was a pretty scary time in history with humans living in dark damp caves and needing to ambush bears as they slept just to survive but the hole in the bare skull could also be proof of something a little darker than just survival according to the smithsonian the hole in the skull may have been made after the bear was already dead so that the cave people could use the beast's head in some type of cave ritual thanks for watching which of these creepy discoveries did you like the most let me know in the comments below and remember to subscribe if you haven't already see you soon bye
0 Comments