The massacre at Eulau

Oldest nuclear family 'murdered'
By Julian Siddle
Science Reporter, BBC News

All adult bodies were buried facing south
The graves contained mainly women and children

The oldest genetically identifiable nuclear family met a violent death, according to analysis of remains from 4,600-year-old burials in Germany.

I'm reading the PNAS paper that this comes from and it's making me cry. The two skeletons at the top of the photo are a man and a woman, buried facing south as was the custom in their culture. Their two little boys (confirmed to be their sons by DNA testing) were buried facing their parents.

In another grave lay a young brother and sister, and an unrelated woman with a baby girl in her arms. The boy had been buried with a man's axe blade. I can imagine some Stone Age man patting his son on the head saying "While I'm hunting, take care of your step-ma and little sisters, okay?" and coming back to find them slaughtered.

I don't know why this makes me so emo. I recently read a book about the civil war in nothern Uganda and yeah, it's terrible, but I didn't have an emotional reaction to it. And these people died over four thousand years ago...