The clay of a man who met a macabre lot at thejaws of a sharkhave been notice at the Tsukumo website near Japan ’s Seto Inland Sea , whereshark attacksstill at times fall out to this solar day . The adult male person ’s skeleton was radiocarbon date back to 1370–1010 cal BCE , placing him within the Jōmon geological period , meaning he was a fisher - hunter - gatherer searching for food in the Japanese archipelago . Archaeological and forensic investigations indicate that he was probably killed by agreat whiteor tiger shark , and the chances are he was alive when it happened …
Published in theJournal of Archaeological Science , a paper detailing the findings surrounding the corpse believes this person to be the oldest do it example of predation on a man by a shark . The unlucky demise was n’t immediately obvious as the specimen , known as No24 , was riddle with evidence of traumatic injuries .
“ We were ab initio bewilder by what could have stimulate at least 790 deep , serrated injury to this man , ” sound out Oxford researchers J. Alyssa White and Professor Rick Schulting in astatement . “ There were so many injury and yet he was buried in the community burial terra firma , the Tsukumo Shell - heap graveyard land site .
“ The injuries were mainly bound to the implements of war , legs , and front of the chest and abdomen . Through a cognitive operation of excreting , we rule out human battle and more commonly - reported animal predator or scavengers . ”
Unsure as to how to proceed , they turn to the expertise of George Burgess , Director Emeritus of the Florida Program for Shark Research , whose knowledge of forensic shark blast case fit him with the noesis to reconstruct No24 ’s concluding minute .
With at least 790 traumatic lesion on his remains , No24 ’s sorry state was report to be characteristic of a shark onslaught . Among the injuries were gouges , punctures , and cuts in the bone as well as blunt force fractures . The researchers map the injuries onto a 3D model of a human being and the resulting visualization suggest that the dupe was belike alive during the plan of attack rather than having been scavenge by the shark when already dead . The left hand would ’ve been almost amputated by the attack which could well have been a wound inflicted as the man tried to defend himself .
“ The Neolithic mass of Jōmon Japan exploited a chain of mountains of marine resources … It ’s not unclouded if Tsukumo 24 was deliberately place sharks or if the shark was attracted by origin or bait from other Pisces , ” say co - author Dr Mark Hudson , a research worker with the Max Planck Institute , in a statement . “ Either way , this find not only provides a new perspective on ancient Japan , but is also a rare example of archaeologist being capable to redo a spectacular sequence in the life story of a prehistorical biotic community . ”
