Australian researchers use modern methods to solve ancient murder mystery

Using state-of-the-art equipment, Australian researchers have managed to solve an 800-year-old murder case pertaining to the death of an Aboriginal man.

A team of scientists led by researcher Michael Westaway, a senior fellow at the Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University, in South East Queensland, has discovered evidence suggesting that a skeleton found protruding from an Australian riverbank two years ago belonged to an ancient indigenous man who died from a strike made by a boomerang, Xinhua news agency reported.

The scientists have meticulously pieced together the final, fatal moments of the man suspected to have taken place during the 1200s, using a state-of-the-art Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating laboratory which helped determine the man's cause of death.

The skeleton was discovered in 2014 by an Aboriginal and it was initially believed that it belonged to a man who was killed by someone with the British Native Police in the 17th century.

But further testing showed that the man died in the 1200s, well before Europeans arrived with their metal weapons, the university said.

"Analysis of the skeleton revealed a large cut to the face that had gashed the bone running from the brow to the chin that had not healed, suggesting it was part of the reason for the man's death," the university said.

Griffith University researchers also found that two of the man's ribs had been broken and that part of his arm had been cut off.

The researchers also noted that the skull had two healed wounds, suggesting that the man had been involved in more than one violent encounter.

But it was the head bruise that the team found most intriguing because it looked like a wound typically caused by a metal weapon.

To better understand what may have caused the head wound, the university researchers also studied paintings that had been done on rocks in the vicinity, which had been dated to around the same time as the skeleton and noted that the paintings depicted people wielding "Lil-lis", a type of knife-like wooden weapon, and boomerangs.

--IANS

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