Ancient Humans Made Mysterious 'Cup' From Dead Person's Skull

Ancient humans manipulated and utilized the bones of deceased individuals buried in a cave over a period of thousands of years, researchers have found.

For a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, a team examined numerous human remains belonging to at least 12 individuals found at a cave in the Andalusia region of southern Spain, known as Cueva de los Marmoles.

The researchers dated the remains to between roughly the 5th and 2nd millennia B.C. The evidence suggests that the individuals were placed in the cave while only partially decomposed.

In addition, the researchers uncovered intentional modifications to the bones that were carried out after death, including fractures and scrapes that might have resulted from efforts to extract marrow and other tissues.

Among the most notable finds, the researchers documented an unusual "skull cup" made from a cranium, whose purpose remains unknown.

"At Marmoles cave we identified various types of modification and manipulation of human skeletal remains. These can be grouped into smashing and fracturing the bones, as well as their apparent cleaning from residual soft tissues," the researchers told Newsweek.

Previous research has shown that caves were used as burial sites by ancient humans in the southern Iberian Peninsula—the stretch of land in southwestern Europe that is divided up between Spain and Portugal—over long periods of time. It appears that this practice became particularly common around the 4th millennium B.C.

Archaeologists have also previously uncovered evidence of ancient humans manipulating buried human remains, although the cultural meaning behind such practices remains largely unclear.

In the Marmoles cave, the researchers documented at least two cases of long human bones that were refashioned into scraping tools.

They also described an "intriguing" modified bone that they described as a "skull cup"—which was made from the upper part of a human cranium. The cranium showed evidence that it had been detached using careful strokes along its perimeter.

"All finds from Marmoles are quite interesting since they document complex—and for us still largely puzzling—beliefs and concerns regarding death, and the relationship between the dead and the community of the living," the researchers said.

"The skull-cup is one of the most striking examples of this complex relationship between the living and the dead. It is a carefully modified human skeletal part."

The purpose for which the skull cup was created or its symbolic significance remains somewhat of a mystery.

"What was the use, symbolic value, and social relevance of this modified human cranium? We are left in the dark," the researchers said.

Intriguingly, the skull cup also shows evidence that the individual underwent a trepanation, or trephination, procedure while they were still alive.

Trepanation is a practice that involves drilling or scraping a hole into the human skull. There is evidence of trepanation stretching all the way back to prehistoric times and the practice has been documented in various parts of the world. In some cases, trepanation was used as a medical intervention, but it may also have had spiritual or ritual purposes.

In the case of the skull cup from Marmoles, it is not clear why the trepanation procedure was carried out, nor whether it had any link to the cranial modification practice that took place after the individual died.

It is not entirely clear who was responsible for the deposition and modification of human remains at Marmoles. But one likely possibility is that community members may have carried out such acts within the context of funerary behaviors.

These behaviors may have been aimed at mediating the transition between the realms of life and death, according to the researchers. More generally, they may have been linked to the need of the living to physically and symbolically manage the dead.

"Again, we are left in the dark regarding the ultimate meanings of these actions," the researchers said.

The results of the study has several implications, according to the researchers. The first is that the extended use of the Marmoles cave points to its "centrality" in the cultural life of these ancient Iberian communities.

The second is that the body and its remains were the focus of complex, ritualized actions, likely aimed at facilitating the transition between life and death, as well as the social management of loss in the community.

The latest results are consistent with other cave sites in the Iberian Peninsula, indicating that such practices were widespread. While the purposes of such modifications remain a mystery, future investigations have the potential to shed more light on such complex funerary behaviors, according to the researchers.

"Zooming out and putting Marmoles cave in the broader context of Andalusia and Southern Spain, we can detect various similarities with other published cave contexts, in the type of traces and modifications of the bones as well as in their overall managing. This is quite interesting and points to shared ideologies surrounding death, the dead, and their physical remains," the researchers said.