The Talheim death pit
Thirty-four people killed with axes and thrown into a pit in Germany around 5000 BCE.
- When
- Known to
- ± 100 years
- Era
- Neolithic, Holocene
A mass grave near Heilbronn contains the bodies of thirty-four men, women and children, most killed by blows to the back of the head from Linearbandkeramik stone adzes, then dumped without ceremony. Nobody was spared by age or sex. Comparable sites at Schoneck-Kilianstadten and Asparn-Schletz followed. Together they establish that organised lethal violence between farming communities is early, deliberate and aimed at annihilation rather than plunder.