Scientists: Cavemen Battled Zombies

Some Stone Age cultures lived in mortal fear of zombie attacks

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Did Stone Age people fight desperate life or death battles against a real Zombie Apocalypse? Believe it or not, some scientists think so.

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Fears of the walking dead

From prehistoric times humans have feared the walking dead—animated corpses that spring back to life to maim and kill. Sometimes the undead rotting crucibles of flesh devolved into terrifying cannibals carrying screaming people off into caverns or deep into the gnarled forests to consume their gruesome meals.

The landmark zombie excavation in Syria

Recently, teams of determined archaeologists digging in the Middle East and Europe exhumed the destroyed skulls of humans that others cracked and smashed in a bid to ensure none of the freshly dead would creep back to life and stalk the still-living.

Smashed skulls

According to a scientifically written—but still chilling study—published by the prestigious journal, New Scientist, a “skull-smashing” culture once spanned across two continents.

Forensic analysis revealed the skuls had been purposefully bashed and smashed several years after the death of the individual. That grisly fact leads some researchers to believe the origins of zombies or vampires—perhaps both—began with these early tribespeople.

After the ritual “re-killing” of the dead—to make sure they did not again walk amongst the living—the mouldering skulls were hacked from the bodies, removed from their original burial sites, and re-buried far from their bodies.

Mother Nature Network reports that Juan José Ibañez of the Spanish National Research Council in Barcelona thinks the ample evidence supports the theory that the “Stone Age ‘skull-smashers’ believed the living were under some kind of threat from the dead. Perhaps they believed that the only way of protecting themselves was to smash in the corpses’ faces, detach their heads and rebury them apart from their bodies.”

Run from the zombies [Courtesy Wikimedia]

Many cultures throughout the Far East and Europe once believed that the dead could walk again. Vampire lore was rampant throughout Eastern Europe until just a few centuries ago.

Cultures have also sought protection from zombies. The country most famous for zombies is the islan nation Haiti. Using speccial drugs during black magic voodoo ceremonies, victims were “killed” and then later resurrected to become mindless robots performing any command their Masters ordered.

Man of the damned—a pitiful Haitain zombie

The practice of voodoo and zombieism became a cultural dad in the USA during the 1930s and 1940s and generated a slew of low-budget, creepy films designed to scare theatergoers.

Zombies were resurrected again with the release of George Romero’s famous low-budget 1968 cult film, Night of the Living Dead. Since the release of that movie dozens of zombie films have been made around the globe.

Still from Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’ [Walter Reade]

Read more about prehistoric zombies here.

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