Skull from Franzhausen Burial Site

Bronze Age. 1,600 BC. Franzhausen, Lower Austria.

The skull, which is some 4,000 years old, is a unique example of the Bronze Age as a time of fundamental economic and social change.

GREEN INFORMATION
Rescue excavations in Franzhausen in Lower Austria in the 1980s revealed parts of the largest European burial site from the early Bronze Age. Many skeleton remains were dug up from the 714 graves, the majority – like this skull – with a green coloration which is intense in places. The color comes from bronze jewelry and weapons, which were originally put directly by the bones, but have been stolen by grave robbers, in some cases back in prehistoric times.
Even so, the intensity of the coloration revealed something to the archeologists about the wealth of the grave items, and so about the social status of the dead. For the first time in human history, clear social differences were revealed in this way in the Bronze Age.
The green coloration also increases the opportunity for anthropological research. Because the structure of the “patina’d bones” is mostly perfectly preserved, bone inflammation and other changes due to disease can be identified with great accuracy. The preserved organic parts permit DNA analysis to resolve origin and relationships.
This skull comes from a woman, indicated by the shape of the forehead, lower jaw and attachment points for neck muscles. She died at an age of between 20 and 30. As in all prehistoric societies, men lived several years longer on average than their women contemporaries, as pregnancy and birth were fatal for many women 4,000 years ago.