Ancient Slovakia ditch hides 7,000-year-old headless skeletons, hinting at Neolithic burial rites

In a Neolithic LBK settlement at Vráble, Slovakia, archaeologists uncovered a ditch containing dozens of headless skeletons, including a mass burial of at least 77 decapitated bodies and a skull from a child. Analyses suggest the skulls were removed with sharp tools and that beheadings occurred postmortem as part of a ritual rather than a mass killing. The find, dating to about 5250–4950 BCE, hints at head-focused ancestor worship or other social practices within three neighboring LBK neighborhoods; researchers caution that more excavation is needed to understand whether violence played a role.