Antall József szerk.: Orvostörténeti közlemények 113-114. (Budapest, 1986)

ADATTÁR - Derums, Vilis A.: Lettország lakosainak hadi sérülései a kőkorszakban (angol nyelven)

Fig. 3. The same skull in top — side projection. damaged aorta. The wounds described above testify to considerable striking force of weapons used by ancient Baits. Analogous injury inflicted with a three-edged weapon in the sixth thoracic vertebra is described by Calvin Wells (1965). A skull from the excavations by Ilze Loze in Middle Latvia (Lubana) presents evidence of the violent death of a young woman of the stone age. Seven arrows had been shot at the poor victim. Five of them left round holes 0,7—1,6 cm in diameter (Fig. 2—3) with comparatively sharply outlined edges. 12—24-fold magnification under a stereoscopic microscope showed that these edges are uneven and small fragments of the bone crumbled off. On the inside the edges of the holes were torn off, the inner table of the skull 0,5—0,8 cm wide broke off. Besides, narrow bone fissures stretch from the frontal and midtemporal holes. All this testifies to the great force of the strokes. Evidently, all five holes in the skull were made by bone arrows. The first three arrows were shot at the left temporal area of the lying woman. Two arrows-which struck the right parietal bone between the sagittal suture and the coronal suture were, evidently, by another man standing in front of the woman to the right. A superficial mark was left on the left side of the forehead by an arrow with a three-edged head. Most probably the woman lay on the ground where she was struck by a number of assailants as a vengeance reason in a battle. All holes were fatal, made with arrows and there are no signs of bone tissue regeneration on their edges. After the violent reprisal the woman's head was severed and thrown into the marsh. In the course of excavations archeologist Loze Ilze discovered only the skull without other skeletal bones at a depth of 0,97 cm.