JAPAN|
A study reveals that a man who died almost 3,000 years ago is the oldest known and found shark attack victim with 800 injuries.
Archaeologists have discovered this skeleton from a burial site in the Seto Inland Sea in Japan.
On investigation, the body was found to have had around 800 injuries. This is extremely shocking! Typically cases like this that involve shark attacks are not found on the archaeological record.
Recent and new research has confirmed this case and confirmed it to be the oldest shark attack victim ever discovered in Japan.
Further, as a part of another research, a group of researchers tried to recreate what occurred to the skeleton discovered from the burial ground at the Tsukumo archaeological site in Okayama prefecture. This particular research was published in the “Journal of Archaeological Science.”
As per their findings, this skeleton was young to a middle-aged man who most likely lived around 1370 to 1010 BC.
“The man’s skeleton who is known as Tsukumo No. 24, had 800 severe injuries that indicated a shark attack as it was full of cuts, fractures from blunt force, and crisscrossing gouges with “sharp, V-shaped edges’, this was reported by researchers in their study according to Live Science.
Findings by scientists also revealed more details like the man’s right leg was found missing and his left leg was found to have been placed on top of his body in an inverted position.
It was possibly an attack of a great white shark or a tiger shark, as per archaeologists. Further, the victim died immediately after the attack due to severe blood loss or shock as the attack was extraordinarily deadly and violent, as pointed by the researchers. The man’s body was found after the shark attack and buried in a communal cemetery.
According to researchers who reported their findings in Live science, the man must have been fishing with his friends when this attack happened, which is why his body was also found easily. This research also confirms that the attack was made by either a tiger (Galeocerdo cuvier) or a great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias).
An archaeologist at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, known as Mark Hudson, stated that “usually we do not find shark attacks on archaeological records. However, this deadly attack of the shark on humans gives us a fresh perspective on ancient Japan. It also showcases a unique and rare example of archaeologists being able to put together a heartbreaking and shocking story that occurred in the life of a prehistoric community”.
A heartbreaking archeological discovery!