A skull and a pair of dismembered hands discovered in Brazil in 2007 have been declared as the oldest known instance of decapitation to occur in the New World.
A skull and a pair of dismembered hands discovered in Brazil in 2007 have been declared as the oldest known instance of decapitation to occur in the New World.
In a recently published paper, the archaeological team involved described both the significance of the find and the skull itself.
Dating showed that the head was interred about 9,000 years ago, predating previous similar finds by thousands of years.
Prior to this many believed the practice of ritual beheading first occurred in about 1000 BC and towards the