Feb 25 I was telling someone the other day that one of the great joys about writing this column for Mint is that I learn about so many different and fascinating scientific endeavours. Not necessary that I write about them all, but I love reading about them.
This column resulted from one such. I mean, the video I mention is something to behold - a guy in a mask and a lab coat whacking a skull (ok, a fake one), then we're shown the "wound", then he does it again! Science! So take a look at my column for yesterday (Feb 24). Lessons in how to smash a skull, https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/lessons-in-how-to-smash-a-skull-11677173085180.html cheers, dilip --- Lessons in how to smash a skull Every so often, there's news from the world of science that you can't help but be awed by. Fabulous space photographs and learnings from the James Webb Space Telescope, for example. Or the Ramanujan Machine that generates new mathematical formulae. Or AI systems - the now-famous ChatGPT, of course - that can seem remarkably human: one recently claimed to have fallen in love with the New York Times columnist it was "speaking" to. And then there are scientists who have been smashing skulls. Well, imitation skulls, but still. All in the name of science. Here's how these researchers described these objects in their paper: "Seven Synbone polyurethane spheres were used as analogues to the human skull. These were covered with rubber skin, filled with ballistic gelatin, and fixed in a way that allowed some mobility when struck. This system creates a skin-skull-brain-neck model." ("Unraveling Neolithic sharp-blunt cranial trauma: Experimental approach through synthetic analogues", Miguel Ángel Moreno-Ibáñez and others, ScienceDirect, March 2023, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305440323000171) Once these skull-analogues were prepared and installed in their lab, the fun began. The scientists used certain tools as weapons, bringing them down with admirable force on the fake skulls. The idea, they wrote, was to "simulat[e] a face-to-face attack." By examining what happened to the fake skull as a result of this unkind treatment, the scientists were able to draw "conclusions about the direction of the blow and the position of the attacker with respect to the victim." Which may leave you wondering. What exactly were the scientists investigating that they had to try to smash these fake skulls? Ancient and brutal attacks in Europe in Neolithic times (10,000 to 4500 BCE), that's what. The archaeological record there includes plenty of gruesome head injuries. The paper lists at least 17 other papers that describe such "penetrating perimortem cranial trauma patterns." These "constitute important evidence of episodes of interpersonal violence in prehistory that, on many occasions, proved fatal." That is, our long-ago ancestors often got into bloody fights. And when they did so, they often aimed for their opponents' heads, because that's how they could inflict the most harm - often enough, causing death. Which is to say, these were not just games our ancestors were playing. But wait, how are we so sure that these injuries were caused during fights anyway? Could they have been accidents? Perhaps some of those sudden deaths were caused by slipping and falling on rocks? To answer that, we rely on something that's known as the Hat Brim Line Rule, first proposed in 1919. The HBL Rule says, in essence, that if a person falls from a standing position, any injuries that result will be below the line the brim of a hat would mark out on the head. If there are injuries above that line, they are likely from blows delivered to the head. Being so, they are likely intentional. If you think about it, this is a pretty intuitive idea. If you fall accidentally, you'd have to be a contortionist to be injured on the top of your head. The long-ago injuries these scientists studied were indeed on the top of the head. So they were almost certainly inflicted intentionally, in violent fights. And remember, what they found on these damaged skulls were injuries that had penetrated the bone. So the fighters were not just hitting each other with their fists. They were wielding weapons. Now ancient humans are known to have crafted and used two different tools, both of stone: the axe and the adze. In each case, the blade was probably tied firmly to a handle made of wood or bone. You're familiar with the shape of the blade of an axe. The adze blade has a similar sharp edge, but it is fastened so the edge is perpendicular to the handle instead of parallel. While both of these are useful everyday tools, ancient humans must have quickly realized that they also make excellent weapons. Bring one of those blades down on someone's head, and it's hard to imagine the hapless victim surviving very long. So by examining each injury, can we conclude whether it was an axe or an adze that caused it? Can we say anything about where the blow came from, or where the two protagonists were in relation to each other as they fought? Well, that's what Moreno-Ibáñez and his colleagues sought to answer, aiming to "replicate an interpersonal attack." They even have a video of how it went. The faux-head - a dull yellow sphere, really - sits on a tripod. A masked marauder - well, Covid protocols, you know - raises the axe over his right shoulder and brings it down hard on the sphere. Helpfully, the paper identifies the marauder: Moreno-Ibáñez himself, "27 years old, 176 cm tall, and weighing 87 kg". We see a close-up of the "wound". Then he attacks another skull with an adze, and it seems to glance off after striking. We get another close-up. The adze wound looks noticeably shallower, if still grim. In general, the scientists found that it was easier to aim and hit a specific spot with an axe than an adze. That's because the way the adze is constructed "makes it easier to deviate when delivering the blow" - the glancing off that the video depicts. The shape and depth of the wounds allowed for inferences about the relative heights of attacker and victim, as well as "whether the victims were also actively engaged in fighting, or whether it was a massacre or execution of individuals." The archaeological record has evidence of both kinds of killings. Like a cave in southeastern Spain. It contains the skeleton of a man killed by a blow to the head from behind - probably using an adze. Or like the so-called "Talheim Death Pit" in southern Germany, which is a grave dating from about 5000 BCE containing 34 bodies. All 34 skulls have wounds, and the surmise was that the majority were inflicted by adzes. Moreno-Ibáñez's violent experiments help confirm such hypotheses. Scientists smash skulls for a reason. Imitation skulls, but still. -- My book with Joy Ma: "The Deoliwallahs" Twitter: @DeathEndsFun Death Ends Fun: http://dcubed.blogspot.com -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Dilip's essays" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to dilips-essays+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dilips-essays/CAEiMe8ooyAG%2BasNXYH72FUd%3DdKhDbqgJcOgS1QLVW%2Bz9jFYdnw%40mail.gmail.com.
