The forensic evidence from Individual 1’s skull is the most striking element of the Loch Borralie analysis, and it requires careful description because the specific observations are more precisely defined than the popular summary — “brain scooped out” — might imply.

The skull of Individual 1 presented two categories of evidence that the researchers considered together.

The first was a fracture at the base of the skull — specifically, in the area of the cranial base formed by portions of the occipital and sphenoid bones.

This fracture, the researchers determined, was consistent with a blunt-force impact delivered at or around the time of death.

The pattern of the fracture, and the characteristics of the broken bone edges, indicated that this was not damage that had occurred long after death as the bones dried out and became brittle, but rather damage that happened when the bone was still relatively fresh — when the individual was recently deceased.