Scientists have shed light on one of the earliest known discoveries of human decapitation.

The 9,000-year-old head had been excavated by André Strauss from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at the Lapa do Santo site in eastern Brazil and showed signs of violent removal.

Strauss consulted professor Sue Black from the University of Dundee’s Centre for Anatomy and Human identification, who compared the remains to those of a modern-day case of decapitation. They identified similar damage to the neck and corruptions indicating that both had been removed manually to finish the job.

Black said: “We were the forensic team that identified the manner in which the decapitation most likely occurred. Examining the skull, we saw fractures consistent with hyper extension of the head and rotation. There would also have been cutting but the fracturing of the neck bones indicated a violence to the region.”

The exact reason for the decapitation is unknown and the discovery of this and other similarly dated heads in South America have raised questions about the societies that existed on the continent at that time according to scientists.

The peoples populating the region at that time are considered hunter gatherer societies with few tools or large population centres, so the need and method used in this form of removal could potentially re-shape experts’ understanding of what life was like during that period.