The bottom line is that the human skulls, having showed signs of preservation, lends great weight to the ancient records of two Greek writers, Strabo and Diodorus of Sicily, who mentioned the Greek Poseidonios witnessing this gory process happening in Gaul around 100 BC. ( CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 ) Confirmation of written records Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England. The animal bones also showed traces of cholesterol.” The research really heated up when the scientists found “six of the eleven human skull fragments bore traces of substances called diterpenoids” revealing that the bones had been in contact with conifer resin, yet this resin was “not found on the animal bones.” To set a control for their tests, Roure and her team analyzed “five bones from animals found in the same area” and a further “11 samples from human skulls” thought to have been “widely visible on display." The analysis revealed that not only had many of the human skulls been decapitated but the scientists also found telltale signs that hinted at “the removal of the brain.”Īll 11 skulls tested positive for fatty acids and cholesterol, which the team says is mostly “characteristic of degraded human, plant or animal fats. ( © Fouille Programmée Le Cailar-UMR5140-ASM) Comparative analysis Réjane Roure, from Paul Valéry University of Montpellier, who was co-author of a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, told reporters at The Guardian “In fact the ancient texts told us about the head embalmed with cedar oil … thanks to our chemical analysis we know that this information is right.”Īerial view of Le Cailar Iron Age settlement, France. Experts working at the iron age settlement of Le Cailar in the south of France “have found traces of conifer resins on the remains of skulls” which backs up ancient reports that the Celtic Gauls preserved their cranial trophies.Ĭontemporary sites have yielded suggestive imagery, including a sculpture of a mounted warrior with a human skull slung around his horse’s neck and a skull with “nails inside,” but whether the Gauls did indeed embalm their severed heads has always been unclear, until now. The Gauls were a group of Celtic peoples who inhabited West-Central Europe (Gaul) from the Iron Age through the Roman period, at which time the people were culturally assimilated into the Roman Empire and their tribal identities had been all but lost by the end of the 1st century AD. Not only has new research confirmed this, but it has also proven that the Gallic warlords also ‘embalmed’ their enemies harvested heads. Returning from battle, according to ancient accounts, Gallic warriors displayed the severed heads of their fallen enemies around their horses’ necks for all to see, as they returned victorious to their tribes.
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