Here’s what you’ll learn as you read this story:
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While excavating the ancient fortress of La Loma in the northern Iberian Peninsula, archaeologists discovered the shattered remains of a skull.
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Genetic analysis shows that the skull was male and indigenous to the northern region of Spain where Celtic warriors known as the Cantabri lived.
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The age of the skull places it around the time of the Cantabrian Wars, when the Romans conquered Cantabria and displayed the head of this unfortunate victim as a trophy.
maybe Game of Thrones Not exactly the best reflection of history, but there is some truth to that gruesome scene where (spoiler alert) Ned Stark’s head is impaled on a pike and displayed outside the gates of King’s Landing. The ancient Romans did the same with the heads of their enemies.
This was not out of the norm for the Roman legions. They are known to expose severed heads, arms, legs, and entire corpses to the elements and onlookers as a scare tactic that probably doubles as a public display of victory. Rome relentlessly fought powerful Celtic warriors known as the Cantabrians in the late 1st century BC, eyeing the capture of the Iberian Peninsula, who pursued the Cantabrians in what is now northern Spain in a series of conflicts known as the Cantabrian Wars. It was at the fortress of La Loma that the Romans finally defeated them – and left a terrible reminder.
Excavations at the ruined citadel revealed a lone skull between the walls, which had long since been destroyed by the Roman army under the emperor Augustus. He already knew of complaints about the Cantabrians from various moral groups within the empire, and they had all the fuel they needed to wage war to claim the Iberian Peninsula. Unlike the fictional Ned Stark mentioned above, the head of this unfortunate accident remains unknown. While there is no evidence that it was raised on a pike, it was displayed above the wall as a grim reminder of what would happen if anyone else tried to dislodge the Romans.
“His intention was to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by defeating the last two Celtic nations to remain outside Rome’s control in western continental Europe,” archaeologist Santiago Domínguez-Solera, director of archeology and cultural heritage in Heroica, said of Augustus in a study recently published in the Roman Journal. “He used some of his best generals, mobilized many of his troops, and invested a great deal of time, material, and human life in this effort.”
Domínguez-Solera, who led a team of researchers excavating the La Loma site, found the skull among the ruins, covered in ash from Roman fires and filled with arrowheads, bladed weapons, jewelry and pieces of armor. He thinks that the cuts and bruises on many of these pieces are possible evidence of bloody hand-to-hand combat. The skull was not found in one piece. What was left of it was scattered, probably broken when it fell from the crumbling walls of the fort and then crushed by them. When these fragments were brought back to the laboratory and dated, the age of the skull coincided with the siege of La Loma during the Cantabrian Wars. Some of the missing parts included the jaw.
With no name or close to any identifying information, the only way the skull could speak was through anatomical and genetic analysis. Bone fragmentation made it difficult to determine age or gender from physical remains alone. The hair assessment came with an age range of 32 to 58 years. It also became clear that the skull was left out when researchers examined weathering-induced bone damage, such as grinding, flaking, splitting, and whitening. Thankfully, its DNA was more intact. Because the skull held 53% of its DNA, it was possible to recover its entire mitochondrial genome.
Genetic evidence can tell more than any physical characteristics. This person’s gender was determined to be male based on the ratio of X and Y chromosomes. His ancestry goes back to the ancient people of the Iberian Peninsula, as evidenced by haplogroups associated with the region, including a haplogroup on his paternal side that dates back to the Early Bronze Age and is still indigenous to the Basque region of the Iberian Peninsula. Further genetic analysis placed him closer to other ancient Iron Age populations in northern Spain.
But genetic analysis alone could not answer one pressing question: Why did he meet such a gruesome end?
“The symbolism of military trophies was realized not only in the display of weapons taken from defeated enemies, but also in acts of violence,” Dominguez-Solera said. “In Roman contexts, these punitive actions may have been part of intimidation tactics rather than ritual practices associated with victory or recognition of the bravery of enemies as warrior prestige.”
Heads still haunt Roman history. The Egyptians, who murdered Pompey the Great on the orders of Pharaoh Ptolemy, presented Caesar with his head and ring. After Cicero was executed for being an enemy of the state for his rivalry with Mark Antony, his dismembered head and hands were displayed. The shattered skull found at La Loma may still hold some mystery, but what was once a trophy now serves as a reminder that if anyone tried to defy the world’s most powerful empire, heads would literally roll.
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