KOITAS, KAZAKHSTAN—LiveScience reports that researchers studying the remains of a seventh-century B.C. nomad unearthed from a Scythian burial mound in central Kazkahstan have discovered an arrowhead embedded in the man's spine. The bronze point is a little over two inches long, but it appears the man did not die immediately after being wounded. "The found individual was extremely lucky to survive," said Queen's University Belfast bioarchaeologist Svetlana Svyatko. "It's hard to get a vertebral wound without damaging the main blood vessels, which would have resulted in an immediate death." The mound in which the remains were found had been plundered before the archaeologists excavated it, but at almost 75 feet in diameter, its impressive dimensions suggest the man belonged to Scythian nobility. To read about the ancestors of the Scythians, go to "Wolf Rites of Winter."
