ISLAMABAD-In previous research, ancient massacre sites found men who died while pitted in battle or discovered executions of targeted families. At other sites, evidence showed killing of members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established communities, and even murders of those who were part of religious rituals. But a more recent discovery by a research team — that includes two University of Wyoming faculty members — reveals the oldest documented site of an indiscriminate mass killing 6,200 years ago in what is now Potočani, Croatia. 

“The DNA, combined with the archaeological and skeletal evidence — especially that indicating systematic violence, perhaps even execution-style — demonstrates an indiscriminate massacre and haphazard burial of 41 individuals from an early pastoralist community in what is now eastern Croatia,” says James Ahern, a UW professor in the Department of Anthropology and associate vice provost for graduate education. Ahern was a nonsenior co-author of a paper, titled, “Genome-Wide Analysis of Nearly All the Victims of a 6,200-Year-Old Massacre,” which was published on March 10, 2021, in PLOS ONE. The journal accepts research in over 200 subject areas across science, engineering, medicine, and the related social sciences and humanities.