Archaeologists Baffled By A 2,000-Year-Old Skeleton Found In Scotland With Its Brain Scooped Out And Its Bones Turned Into Tools

Marks on the inside of the skull, accessible only through an opening in the cranium, are far more specific in what they can mean.

The researchers concluded that these internal cut marks were most consistent with the insertion of a tool through the broken cranial base and the use of that tool to cut and scrape the soft tissue inside the skull — in other words, with the deliberate removal of the brain from the skull cavity through the opening created by the cranial base fracture.

The study’s language is careful and appropriately hedged: “Taken together, breakage of the cranial base and internal cutmarks are suggestive of deliberate removal of the brain soon after the death of this individual.” “Suggestive of” is doing specific work in that sentence.

The researchers are not claiming certainty about what happened; they are characterizing the evidence and indicating what it most plausibly represents.