ANDALUSIA, SPAIN—Live Science reports that the fragments of a lone human skull were discovered in the collapsed walls of a 2,000-year-old Celtic fort at the Cantabri site of La Loma in northern Spain. The flaking, bleached condition of the bones suggests that they had been left outside in the elements for at least a few months, said Santiago Domínguez-Solera of Heroica Archaeology and Cultural Heritage. Analysis of the bone indicates that they belonged to a man who likely lived in the area and was about 45 years old at the time of death. Hundreds of projectiles uncovered outside the fort’s walls were likely shot by Roman soldiers. Fragments of armor and weapons on the ground are thought to be evidence of hand-to-hand combat between Romans and the Cantabri. Domínguez-Solera suggests that the newly discovered skull belonged to a defender of the fort decapitated by the Romans, who placed his head atop a wall of the fort during their occupation. When the Romans eventually demolished the structure, the exposed skull was buried in the rubble. “This year, we found other skull fragments—human ones—in other areas of the [fort’s] entrance. We are going to study them for more evidence of punishments,” Domínguez-Solera concluded. Read the original scholarly article about this research in the Journal of Roman Archaeology. To read about a trilobite fossil uncovered at a Roman site in northern Spain, go to "Fossil Force."
