About 12,000 years ago, a man was shot in what is now Vietnam with an exotic stone tip. He survived his initial injury, but is likely succumbed to the infection, a new analysis of his body suggests.
Researchers say more evidence is needed to reach that conclusion, but researchers argue that the male well-conserved skeleton may be the earliest evidence of Southeast Asian violence.
In a study published on Wednesday (August 27) Royal Society B: Biological Sciences Journal Proceedings, researchers detailed an analysis of the male skeletal structure called TBH1. The man was about 35 years old when he died at least 12,000 years ago, during the late Pleistocene period (126,000 to 11,700 years ago).
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The skeleton was originally excavated in 2018 from Thung Binh 1, a landscape complex in North Vietnam. He was buried in the fetal position, his face resting on his hands.
TBH1’s skull was crushed, but researchers were able to reconstruct his skull and jaw. The initial appearance suggested that, besides suffering minor ankle injuries, the man was in good health when he died.
However, a more thorough analysis of the male skeletal structure revealed anatomical abnormalities: additional ribs. Most people have 24 ribs, but 0.2% to 1% of people have an extra thing called the ultra-numbered ribs, the researchers wrote in their study. This guy’s extra ribs were near his neck. In particular, the “bonus” ribs of TBH1 were fractured and showed signs of infection. Specifically, the gap in the bones where pus was drained.
“TBH1 lived for several months after the injury occurred,” the researchers wrote in the study. However, “without effective treatment” for fractures, “it is likely to have led to bacteria and other forms of infection,” they wrote.
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Near the infected extra ribs, researchers discovered a small triangular quartz flake that they described as “micropoints.” At the point about 0.72 inches (18 mm) long, there was evidence of a notch. This suggests that it was used as a barb for projectiles such as darts and arrows, including research co-author Christopher Stimpson, a zoo physician at the Museum of Natural History in London.
“The points are particularly interesting,” said Benjamin Yutt, a study co-author who is an archaeologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, in a statement. “It doesn’t match Thung Bunh 1 or any other stone tools on nearby sites, so it raises questions about who made it and where it came from.”
The combination of micropoints near the neck of TBH1, male infected ribs, and the exotic nature of quartz suggests that men may have been victims of interpersonal violence, the researchers wrote. This would expand evidence of violence among hunter-gatherer groups in East Asia thousands of years ago.
“This is an exciting new report from a time and place with very few well-preserved skeletons to study,” Michael Rivera, a biologist at the University of Hong Kong who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. “The quartz projectile may have been the perpetrator leading to an infected rib, but it is difficult in my opinion to assess whether this was a violent act or an accidental injury.”
TBH1 is likely taken care of by his community, Rivera said. Because the man survived his first injury and was carefully buried in a cave.
Though TBH1 is a unique burial, Stimpson said, “The hills and their caves appear to have played a long-standing role as burial sites, as evidenced by later archaeology.”
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