
Hundreds of people died over a millennium at “Skeleton Lake” in the Himalayas - prawn
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/a35gd8/nobody-knows-why-hundreds-of-people-died-at-this-creepy-himalayan-lake
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ggm
If you are lost high in the zone, water is precious. So, lost people would
tend to congregate near water, thats a basic survival outcome. The commonality
of head wound, across a long time window argues for something which is more
likely to persist over long times.

So, I go with _yeti favoured a head-shot, and only predated on lonely
travellers high near the lake_ as the least-likely outcome.

Every archeology program made by the BBC says "ritual" so there's that. Maybe
blunt force trauma from a long tibetan horn? Or blunt force trauma for
_playing_ the long tibetan horn?

~~~
coldtea
> _Maybe blunt force trauma from a long tibetan horn? Or blunt force trauma
> for playing the long tibetan horn?_

Related:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFqJgHPFfU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggFqJgHPFfU)

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ian0
>> "hundreds of unexplained deaths spanning more than 1,000 years, according
to a new study."

Id imagine theres quite a few places on earth that would tick that box :)
Semi-relatedly, theres a 4000 year old dolmen close to my house and lying
beside it is a ~200 year old broken grave stone. Its' suspected that there was
a mistake during carving of the gravestone and hypothesised the stonemason
left it near the Dolmon as they attached some spiritual significance to the
place, albeit without religious (catholic) significance.

Sometimes places just become the "something" place, even over long periods of
time. This could be the "dump the bodies" place.

~~~
hprotagonist
It’s not exactly a convenient location to haul bodies to. For example, the
lead author in one of the papers reporting this was unable to visit the site
personally; she was kept at base camp with altitude sickness for the duration
of the site visit.

Reporting notes that normally when you find a lot of bodies you’ve found a
graveyard, but this site seems different enough from normal to warrant a
second look.

~~~
saiya-jin
Convenience might not be the most significant drive - it could have been for
example a sacred place (like Muktinath in Nepal located on Annapurna circuit,
3800m high) or any other reason not clear after hundreds of years. Look at
India - people go to great lengths to cremate their beloved ones in Varanasi
ghats, often travelling > 1000km with corpse (seen it on train from Delhi
myself)

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woah
How is the corpse transported? Open air, Sunday best? Or are they hauling
around a coffin?

~~~
coldtea
Weekend at Bernie's style

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microtherion
The lake appears to have glaciers in the neighborhood. Could it be that the
skeletons belong to people who died on a glacier and were deposited near the
lake during subsequent expansion & contraction periods?

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jhloa2
Wouldn’t that crush the bones? Also if that were the case wouldn’t they be
more spread out?

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EdwardDiego
> Wouldn’t that crush the bones?

Otzi wasn't overly crushed.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi#/media/File:OetzitheIcema...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ötzi#/media/File:OetzitheIceman-
glacier-199109a.jpg)

I imagine it'd depend on the glacier, but yeah.

~~~
simonh
Otzi's body wasn't moved by the ice. He was just frozen in place, then thawed.

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datenhorst
In the wikipedia article it actually says that there is a theory that his body
was placed on a nearby burial mound and moved by the ice to the location were
he was found but:

> While archaeobotanist Klaus Oeggl of the University of Innsbruck agrees that
> the natural process described probably caused the body to move from the
> ridge that includes the stone formation, he pointed out that the paper
> provided no compelling evidence to demonstrate that the scattered stones
> constituted a burial platform

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merpnderp
If the skeletons all died from the same injury, a blow to the back of the
head, and were killed over a period of time, why isn't the most obvious answer
that this lake was a religious site and these people killed in a religious
ceremony? It's not like sacrificing captives, slaves, and members of one's own
people was uncommon.

~~~
logfromblammo
But "religious or ceremonial" is archaeology's cop out.

According to article, the skeletons had compression fractures, consistent with
blunt-force injury (as by hailstorm), and analysis of the skulls is planned
for the next study.

I'd rule out banditry, military action, natural geological or weather events,
and poisoning first.

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arbuge
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roopkund](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roopkund)

"The studies of the skeletons revealed a common cause of death: blows to the
back of the head, caused by round objects falling from above. The researchers
concluded that the victims had been caught in a sudden hailstorm, just as
described in the local legends and songs."

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yawz
_" Until now, the leading theory was that a brutal hailstorm pummelled all of
the travelers to death at the same time around 800 CE in a single catastrophic
event, which might explain the unhealed compression fractures found on some of
the bones. While deadly hail may account for some of the fatalities, new
evidence strongly suggests that these people met their deaths in multiple
different events at the lake across the centuries."_

~~~
arbuge
> new evidence strongly suggests that these people met their deaths in
> multiple different events at the lake across the centuries.

If the area's geography and location makes it prone to violent hailstorms, I
would think that those might simply be multiple hailstorms across the
centuries.

Certainly I would personally keep an eye on the weather if I ever happen to
visit.

~~~
HelloNurse
If there are violent hailstorms, judging from the photos on Wikipedia it isn't
a good place to catch them: zero cover and a high likelyhood to fall and/or
run downhill onto the edge of the lake causing a concentration of dead bodies.

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JulianMorrison
Could still be several violent hailstorms. A thousand years is long enough for
a regionally periodic weather pattern to recur and coincide with the presence
of a group of travellers.

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sergius
Maybe they found the waters they were looking for:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_(short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Immortal_\(short_story\))

[https://www.torindoppelt.com/teaching/phil204/borgesimmortal...](https://www.torindoppelt.com/teaching/phil204/borgesimmortal.pdf)

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sombremesa
Probably a limnic eruption. Or multiple of those.

~~~
flukus
That was my first thought but I doubt it's possible with a lake that's an
average of 2m deep. I'd still suspect some sort of gas release though, from
pictures it looks like it's surrounded on all sides so CO2 releases couldn't
escape.

~~~
baybal2
And the lake is in the very deep depression. If there was a release of
something much heavier than air, it will congest there, and traumas can be
post mortem

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irrational
I wonder how the Mediterranean people go there? That seems stranger than the
manner of death.

~~~
yk
Actually not. Even if it was a lot rarer for people in the past to travel long
distances, it is not that it just never happened. There were Indian people in
classical Greece, at least one commander of Roman Britain was from North
Africa, and traders always moved all over the place.

~~~
simonh
Also the early 1800s was an era of extensive European exploration and colonial
interest in the region. By that time Britain dominated India and Russia was
contending with them for Afghanistan in the 'Great Game'.

It's really not surprising to find people from the eastern Mediterranean
anywhere in Asia over the last thousand years. We know there was a Nestorian
Christian community in China in the 13th Century and several of them had
diplomatic roles under the Khanate.

See below, but that whole article is worth reading. Did you know there was an
official Catholic Archbishop of Beijing in the 14th Century?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeans_in_Medieval_China#Di...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Europeans_in_Medieval_China#Diplomatic_missions_to_Europe)

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rajeev_n
I have been there , after 5 days of trek . It goes through two beautiful
meadows

~~~
dm3730
That sounds really interesting. If you're willing to share photos, I would
really love to see them. Thank you.

~~~
rajeev_nair
[http://rajeev-narayanan.blogspot.com/2017/11/roopkund-
trek.h...](http://rajeev-narayanan.blogspot.com/2017/11/roopkund-trek.html)
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/h7XtsvL5LRoFT3HJ2](https://photos.app.goo.gl/h7XtsvL5LRoFT3HJ2)

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chiefalchemist
Does the article say they are sure they died there? If so, I think I missed
it. Or maybe some did, and others were taken there? To die? Or were already
dead?

There can't be that many roads / trails thought that area. So if they
bottleneck at the point then perhaps the water from time to time goes bad? If
some of them "lost it" (mentally) from the water then perhaps that explains
the cracked skulls?

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dredmorbius
Hauling corpses long distances through high, rugged terrain, only to deposit
them randomly around a lake is ... somehow unlikely.

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chiefalchemist
I'd like to say I agree. But look at all the massive pyramids built throughout
the world. Hauling _____ long distances seems somewhat a non-issue.

~~~
dredmorbius
Other than the largish rockpile at the end, most material for pyramids was
moved _relatively_ short distances and largely via water (boats/barges).
Probably on rollers on dry land, AFAIU.

And gathering up large teams when you're the world's largest^WONLY
civilisation, in the most fertile river valley the world has ever known, is
somewhat easier than above 4200 metres.

It wouldn't have taken much doing to accumulate a few hundred corpses, mind.
Though having them walk under their own power would be easier.

~~~
chiefalchemist
Stonehenge. Etc. Regardless of how, BIG things were being moved.

Also, and perhaps more importantly, the weight and difficulty of a body is a
function of the number of people trying to carry it. One person carrying a
single body might be a struggle.

But five, ten or twenty people? That wouldn't be a struggle.

~~~
dredmorbius
Roopkund is at _5,000 meters elevation._ 16,470 ft.

That's an altitude at which most people have enough difficulty in dragging
_their own_ body. Let alone 100s of others.

Again: the the premise seems quite weak.

The mainstream hypothesis of pilgrims, or _very_ possibly travellers or
traders (carrying very light, very valuable goods?) getting caught out in
severe weather seems far more probable.

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ctack
Maybe the lake is a favourite haunt of vultures who bring sky burial bones
there.

~~~
kranner
Bones are not left whole in sky burials. They are ground up manually and mixed
with tsampa (roast barley flour) so that vultures can consume them easily.

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unstatusthequo
Intel has a new name idea for a future chipset now

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hprotagonist
over, seemingly, hundreds of years.

