Nataruk

Nataruk

The site of Nataruk taken during excavations
Location in Kenya
Location	Turkana County, Kenya
Region	Lake Turkana
Site notes
Discovered	2012
Excavation dates	from 2012
Archaeologists	Marta Mirazón Lahr
Dated to 9,500–10,500 BP (7,550–8,550 BC)

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Nataruk in Turkana County, Kenya, is the site of an archaeological investigation which uncovered the remains of 27 people.^[1][2] It dates between 9,500 and 10,500 BP (7,550–8,550 BC).^[3] The remains have garnered wide media attention for possible bioarchaeological evidence of interpersonal violence, i.e. prehistoric warfare.

According to the Nature article published by Dr. Mirazón Lahr and colleagues, the skeletons present the earliest evidence for intergroup violence among hunting-foraging populations, which they interpret as a "massacre":^[2] the remains of adults and six children show signs of a violent end, having been clubbed or stabbed and left to die without burial.^[1][4] Two of the male remains had stone projectile tips lodged in the skull and thorax.^[4]

However, a 'Brief Communication Arising' published in Nature by Christopher Stojanowski and colleagues calls into question much of the alleged evidence of a "massacre".^[5] Their critique centers on two main points. First, these authors suggest that much of the evidence of peri-mortem trauma identified by Mirazón Lahr is equally - if not more - likely to have occurred after deposition; that is, after the skeletons were buried, intentionally or otherwise. Second, Stojanowski disagrees over the interpretation of the site formation processes. Where Mirazón Lahr sees little evidence for intentional burial at the site, Stojanowski argues that the bodies at Nataruk are mostly articulated, spatially organized, non-commingled, and preserve limited variation in body positioning, all of which are inconsistent with skeletons from well-documented massacre sites.^[5][6]2°42′24″N 36°08′31″E / 2.70661°N 36.14191°E / 2.70661; 36.14191

It is unclear exactly what happened at the site, but Mirazón Lahr stands by her interpretation that it was a massacre, the result of an attack by another group of hunter-gatherers.^[1][7] They stated it is "the earliest scientifically-dated historical evidence of human conflict."^[4], although Jebel Sahaba, another prehistoric massacre site, has been dated between 13,400 and 18,600 BP and predates Nataruk by several millennia.^[8]

The excavation at Nataruk, led by Dr. Marta Mirazón Lahr as part of the IN-AFRICA Project,^[9] began in 2012.^[1]