Of course — and this is a really strong draft already: clear, punchy, and very much in your usual style. I’ve just smoothed the grammar, corrected spelling, tightened a few phrases, and made the flow a little more polished while keeping your voice intact. Evidence revealed in a paper just published in Science Advances tells a grim story of ritualised killings in Europe about 6,000 years ago. The paper is the work of a team led by Dr Teresa Fernández-Crespo of the University of Valladolid, a Research Associate at Oxford’s School of Archaeology, together with Professor Rick J. Schulting of Oxford University. The killings appear to have been carried out as a victory celebration or demonstration of power, and they speak of conflict and struggles for regional dominance between rival Neolithic groups.
Two things about this research should trouble creationists who cling to patently absurd beliefs despite the vast array of evidence showing them to be wrong.
Firstly, this ritual slaughter took place at a time when, according to the biblical narrative, there would supposedly have been too few people on the planet to form rival groups competing for power and territory in Europe.
Secondly, none of this evidence ought to exist at all if the genocidal Flood described in Genesis had really occurred just a few thousand years ago, because it would either have been swept away entirely or, at best, buried beneath a thick layer of flood-deposited silt containing the fossils of all the dead animals and plants such a catastrophe would have produced.
The isotopic analysis of the remains tells a story of conflict on two levels: rivalry between local groups, in which severed left arms were collected as war trophies, and conflict with outsiders, prisoners from whom were ritually slaughtered in grim victory celebrations.
Background^ Neolithic Alsace around Achenheim and Bergheim.The findings of the research group is explained in a news item from Oxford University School of Archaeology.
- Where this is, and why it mattered
- Achenheim and Bergheim sit in the Upper Rhine Valley in Alsace, a natural north–south corridor between the Vosges and the Rhine, with fertile loess-derived soils that were highly attractive to early farmers. [1]
- A long-established farming landscape
- By the time of the events in this paper (c. 4300–4150 BCE), Alsace had already seen millennia of Neolithic occupation, with settlements, fields, livestock and ceramic traditions arriving and evolving through multiple phases. This was not “first farmers on virgin ground”, but a well-used, culturally busy landscape. [1]
- The specific time window
- The victims and pits studied at Achenheim and Bergheim date to the Late Middle Neolithic, roughly 4300–4150 BCE. [2]
- Who the “locals” were (cultural groups and rapid change)
- In Lower Alsace, archaeologists distinguish a local tradition often labelled the Bruebach–Oberbergen group, which is then rapidly replaced (with no gentle transition) by Western Bischheim traditions (often abbreviated BORS, “Bischheim Occidental du Rhin Supérieur”), interpreted as coming from groups with origins to the west (Paris Basin). Modelled estimates place this turnover around 4295–4165 cal BCE. [3]
- Shortly after, the Michelsberg horizon becomes important in the wider regional sequence (around/after c. 4000 BCE in the Lower Alsace modelling), marking another major cultural reorganisation. [4]
- What Achenheim and Bergheim are archaeologically
- These are not single “cemeteries” in the usual sense. They include circular pits and other settlement-related features typical of Neolithic sites in the region. The specific deposits discussed in this research come from pits at Achenheim (“Strasse 2, RD 45”) and Bergheim (“Saulager”). [3]
- Circular pits and human deposition: a wider regional practice
- Across Central and Western Europe (including Alsace), placing human remains in circular pits is a documented phenomenon during the 5th–4th millennia BCE, but it varies hugely from site to site—making interpretation difficult even before you add violence and trophy-taking. [5]
- What makes Achenheim/Bergheim stand out
- The Oxford and Science Advances reporting emphasises that the Achenheim and Bergheim pits contain complete skeletons showing repeated, excessive violence (“overkill”) and severed left upper limbs deposited separately—patterns that don’t match a straightforward “massacre cemetery” narrative. [2]
- Why conflict is plausible here even without written history
- This period in the Upper Rhine is characterised (in the archaeological literature and modelling work) as one of movement, re-alignment, and rapid shifts in material culture, which provides a credible backdrop for competition, raiding, coercion, and dominance displays between neighbouring groups and incomers. [4]
New research reconstructs the identity of victims from one of the earliest victory celebrations in Europe.
New research published in the journal Science Advances challenges previous theories about prehistoric conflict by offering a detailed look into the lives and deaths of victims of what could be one of the earliest victory celebrations in Europe. The study, which is led by Dr. Teresa Fernández-Crespo, a Distinguished Researcher at the University of Valladolid (Spain) and a Research Associate at the School of Archaeology, and is co-authored by Professor Rick Schulting, reconstructs the identity of these victims through innovative multi-isotope analysis.
The research focused on two Late Middle Neolithic sites in Alsace, northeastern France: Achenheim and Bergheim, dated to around 4300–4150 BCE. Archaeologists discovered human remains in circular pits, including complete skeletons with multiple signs of "unnecessarily excessive" violence, also known as overkill. The pits also contained isolated segments of severed left upper limbs. This unique combination of evidence does not align with typical massacres or executions previously documented in the European Neolithic record. To solve the mystery, the research team used a multi-isotope approach to reconstruct the victims' identities. By analyzing stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur from the bone and tooth collagen, as well as oxygen, carbon, and strontium isotopes from tooth enamel, they were able to reconstruct their diet, social background, and geographic origin. The study compared these "victims" with other individuals from the region who had received conventional burials, referred to as "non-victims". Samples from animals and plants were also analyzed to establish a local isotopic baseline.
The results reveal significant isotopic differences between the victims and non-victims. The victims' isotopic profiles suggest they experienced greater mobility, a more variable diet, and potentially higher physiological stress, pointing to a substantially different lifestyle. This supports the hypothesis that they were outsiders.
The findings also show clear differences between the complete skeletons and the severed limbs, particularly in the sulfur isotope values. This suggests that their different treatment may be linked to their geographic origins. The severed upper limbs had consistently low sulfur isotope values, which matched those of the supposed non-victims in northern Alsace. This could indicate that these individuals came from that area. In contrast, most of the complete victim skeletons had higher sulfur values, compatible with an origin closer to southern Alsace.
The study proposes a striking interpretation: the severed limbs were trophies from enemies who fell in battle and were brought back to the village for public display. The individuals with complete skeletons, meanwhile, may have been captives brought back alive to be cruelly tortured and sacrificed in victory celebrations—a form of "political theatre" to reinforce social cohesion and dehumanize the enemy.
These findings suggest that the ritualised violence and trophy deposition at the Achenheim and Bergheim sites represent one of the oldest and best-documented examples of victory celebrations in European prehistory. The study offers a new perspective on Neolithic conflict and the identity of its victims, moving beyond simple massacres to reveal complex, culturally specific rituals of triumph that may have been a key aspect of ancient warfare. The researchers believe these events were not just acts of violence, but also acts of power reaffirmation, revenge, and commemoration of the fallen.
Publication:
What emerges from Achenheim and Bergheim is not merely an archaeological curiosity but a stark reminder of what the Neolithic world actually looked like: human communities already deeply embedded in complex social landscapes, competing for land, resources, and status, and capable of brutality every bit as ritualised and symbolic as that of later historical societies. The isotopic evidence of outsiders being captured and slaughtered alongside trophies taken from local rivals paints a picture of conflict on multiple scales — not an isolated tragedy, but part of an established pattern of human interaction long before the first kings, armies, or written chronicles.
For creationists, this is yet another awkward intrusion of reality into a worldview constructed from ancient myth. Six thousand years ago, Europe was not a sparsely populated post-Flood wilderness inhabited by the descendants of a single family. It was already home to numerous settled farming groups with distinct identities, long regional histories, and struggles for dominance that can be traced through bones, pits, and chemistry. The biblical timeline simply has no room for this depth of human prehistory.
Nor does it have any explanation for why such fragile and specific evidence survives at all. A global flood, churning the planet into chaos only a few thousand years ago, would not preserve the forensic subtleties of severed limbs, carefully placed remains, and local isotopic signatures of origin. The story told at Bergheim and Achenheim is not one of watery obliteration, but of continuity — of people living, dying, and leaving traces in landscapes that have never been reset by the imaginary catastrophes demanded by creationist dogma.
Once again, the past refuses to cooperate with the narratives imposed upon it. Reality, as ever, refuses to organise itself around Bronze Age mythology.
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