The massacre mass grave of Schöneck-Kilianstädten reveals new insights into collective violence in Early Neolithic Central Europe

TLDR

Conflict and warfare are central yet contested themes in European Neolithic studies, and only a few key sites such as Talheim and Asparn/Schletz have provided precise insights into extreme violence. The study presents conclusive evidence of a new LBK massacre at Schöneck‑Kilianstädten, Germany, to expand understanding of violence patterns. The authors examined the LBK mass grave at Schöneck‑Kilianstädten, Germany, to uncover evidence of a massacre. The grave contained at least 26 individuals violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries, with systematic lower‑limb fractures indicating torture, confirming that large‑scale massacres were common in the late LBK.

Abstract

Conflict and warfare are central but also disputed themes in discussions about the European Neolithic. Although a few recent population studies provide broad overviews, only a very limited number of currently known key sites provide precise insights into moments of extreme and mass violence and their impact on Neolithic societies. The massacre sites of Talheim, Germany, and Asparn/Schletz, Austria, have long been the focal points around which hypotheses concerning a final lethal crisis of the first Central European farmers of the Early Neolithic Linearbandkeramik Culture (LBK) have concentrated. With the recently examined LBK mass grave site of Schöneck-Kilianstädten, Germany, we present new conclusive and indisputable evidence for another massacre, adding new data to the discussion of LBK violence patterns. At least 26 individuals were violently killed by blunt force and arrow injuries before being deposited in a commingled mass grave. Although the absence and possible abduction of younger females has been suggested for other sites previously, a new violence-related pattern was identified here: the intentional and systematic breaking of lower limbs. The abundance of the identified perimortem fractures clearly indicates torture and/or mutilation of the victims. The new evidence presented here for unequivocal lethal violence on a large scale is put into perspective for the Early Neolithic of Central Europe and, in conjunction with previous results, indicates that massacres of entire communities were not isolated occurrences but rather were frequent features of the last phases of the LBK.