
Human Skulls Mounted on Stakes Found at 8,000-Year-Old Burial Site in Sweden - curtis
https://gizmodo.com/human-skulls-mounted-on-stakes-found-at-8-000-year-old-1822936885
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staunch
Ancient people almost universally suffered from severe childhood trauma and
abuse. A majority must have lived with deep psychological problems. They did
all kinds of messed up stuff, including perpetuating the cycle of abuse all
the way to today. Impaling a few skulls is (sadly) the least of it.

Children being born today are some of the first to have parents that even
understand what child abuse is. Which means it's possible that there will be a
drastic reduction over the next generations.

It's likely that this would result in a markedly different global society.
Maybe even one that eliminates most forms of abuse and needless suffering.

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robotomir
Minoans sacrificed children in at least one of the palaces and practiced
ritual cannibalism, according to recent finds. Romans destroyed the site of
Carthage with great care, but you have to wonder what the myth of child
sacrifices in the brazen bull really means.

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hnzix
_> you have to wonder what the myth of child sacrifices in the brazen bull
really means._

The stories of sacrifice to Moloch are supported by archeological finds of
child remains around Carthage.

[https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginian...](https://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/jan/21/carthaginians-
sacrificed-own-children-study)

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codezero
There is a lot of recent research showing hunter gatherers were not as passive
as once thought. Quite a few discoveries of mass graves from attacks on rival
tribes and things like this are new in our understanding of ancient peoples.
This is a neat find.

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ProAm
No different than today.

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menacingly
I think it was a response to how often we have heard that peaceful hunter
societies _were_ different from today

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roymckenzie
I can appreciate how European Mesolithic cultures dealt with the corrupt CEOs
of their big banks.

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tw1010
You're sort of implying that "free riders" were less of a problem earlier in
our history because aggressive coalitions of lower ranked members were able to
force the hierarchy more in favour of egalitarianism. But that is hardly
supported by the facts. Kings are an obvious counter-example. The caste system
in India is another good example of a structure that were very robust (for
many many many years) against any kind of aggressive revolution from below.

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zeveb
> Displaying decapitated heads on wooden stakes is something you might expect
> from the Middle Ages …

I dunno, _I_ tend to think of Amazonian headshrinking:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrunken_head](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrunken_head)

> Historical examples include European colonists mounting the skulls of
> murdered indigenous peoples, or indigenous peoples using skulls in both
> burial rituals and as trophy displays.

Ah, so Europeans mount the skulls of murder victims, while _indigenous
peoples_ bury them, or keep them as trophies.

What a very interesting viewpoint on human history prevails amongst the
editors at Gizmodo.

~~~
acheron
You can take the Gizmodo out of Gawker, but you can’t take the Gawker out of
Gizmodo.

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pavel_lishin
Probably just children's toys.

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unicornporn
Blog spam. Go here instead:
[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/ke...](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/keep-
your-head-high-skulls-on-stakes-and-cranial-trauma-in-mesolithic-
sweden/39BD3070DCC745A9CBAB1DF52FEC2782/core-reader)

It isn't a particularly long or difficult read.

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curtis
I think calling it blog spam is a little bit unfair. The Gizmodo article is
about 1/4 the size of the paper, but nevertheless reads like the writer
actually read the original paper and tried to fairly summarize it.

~~~
shrimp_emoji
But what can summarize the Gizmodo article in 1/4th of its size?

Parasitism all the way down!

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baybal2
I wonder how do such news get to line one of this website? An algo or actual
human moderation?

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brentm
This is one explanation: [https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-
news-ranking...](https://medium.com/hacking-and-gonzo/how-hacker-news-ranking-
algorithm-works-1d9b0cf2c08d)

