Archaeologists find 5,000-year-old human skulls used as food bowls, jawbones carved into spoons

Archaeologists say Neolithic Liangzhu residents shaped human skulls and other bones into everyday tools like bowls, cups, masks, and knives. The dig site dates back roughly 5,000 years and documents the first known example of routine human bone-working in prehistoric China.

The work centers on the walled city of Liangzhu in the Yangtze River Delta. Researchers reviewed 183 human bones and found 52 reworked pieces.

What the bones show

Most modified bones remained unfinished, roughly four out of five items. Many came from moats and canals near a workshop area called Zhongjiagang.

Dates cluster between 4,800 and 4,600 cal BP, calibrated years before present using radiocarbon tests. Skull bones dominate the set at about 71 percent.

Investigators saw no cut marks, disarticulation scars, or burning on the bones. That pattern fits taphonomy, the study of what happens to remains after death.

“The sudden appearance of such items may be closely related to Liangzhu’s urban nature,” wrote archaeologist and lead author Junmei Sawada of Niigata University of Health and Welfare (NUHW).

Studying human bone tools

Researchers grouped the pieces into six recurring tool shapes with specific bones. These include skull cups, mask-like faces, small skull plates, perforated skulls, flattened jaws, and long bones worked at the shaft ends.

The shaft is the diaphysis, the long central section of a limb bone. Tool-like flattening on some ends suggests scraping or engraving use.

One child’s skull, about age 6 to 8, carried two polished holes and surface abrasions. No close parallel is known in Chinese archaeology.

Only one skull cup is fully finished, with a smoothed rim. Three others and several mandibles and limbs were abandoned before final shaping.

Urban shift in respect for the dead

Liangzhu was a planned city with dams, palaces, and neighborhoods. It is a World Heritage site recognized by UNESCO.

As cities grow, tight kin networks can loosen, changing mortuary practice, cultural ways of handling the dead. The Liangzhu record points to people outside family remembrance.

The team found no preference for sex or age among modified bones. Selection leaned toward heads rather than limbs, completing the pattern.

Work followed repeatable steps but often stopped midway. That stop-start rhythm implies an ample supply of bones were available and that completing the job of turning them into tools was not always the goal.

Comparing China’s bone tools

In Ice Age Britain, people shaped cranial vaults into drinking vessels. Those bones carry heavy cut marks linked to processing flesh.

At Shimao on the Loess Plateau, archaeologists excavated pits of skulls likely tied to sacrifice. Liangzhu lacks signs of violence or dismemberment.

These contrasts place Liangzhu outside warfare trophies and ancestral relics. The pattern looks more like standardized craft within a city economy.

How the team tested their ideas

Researchers documented splitting, grinding, perforation, and polish, then compared patterns across bones. They used bone-focused, criteria and low-power magnification to separate bone tool marks from natural damage.

They screened for health markers on skulls and teeth. Two cases showed cribra orbitalia, porous bone on the eye roof that signals childhood stress.

They examined limb shafts for periosteal reaction, new bone growth caused by inflammation or stress. Frequencies were similar in worked and unworked bones, suggesting the material came from a wide range of people.

Radiocarbon samples from both groups overlap tightly in time. That timing, supported by radiocarbon dating, measurement of carbon-14 decay to estimate age, anchors the activity at Liangzhu’s peak.

What the unfinished pieces imply

The heavy share of incomplete objects suggests raw material was not rare or set apart. High availability fits standardization.

Abandonment could reflect mistakes, changing plans, or functional choices. Discard in canals may reflect deposition, deliberate placement in a specific feature after work stopped.

Some shapes look practical, like scraping tips, while others resist clear labels. Those ambiguous pieces may record trials, teaching, or display rather than daily use in a workshop.

None of the canal finds carried elite jade or ritual markers. That separation suggests everyday craft, not temple gear or formal rites.

Bone tools and Liangzhu, China

Liangzhu concentrated labor and logistics in a dense urban core. That density encourages craft specialization.

Food, soil, stone, and bodies moved through channels, levees, and gates. Such infrastructure, water, and storage, underwrote new routines.

Urban life can make identities feel less personal, especially at scale. In that setting, remains could be treated as materials without malice or spectacle.

The contrast with ancestor-focused villages is striking. Here, anonymity and routine seem to matter more than named kin.

The finds sharpen how we read early state formation and identity. Liangzhu shows standardized production in a city that engineered large-scale water control.

Future tests could track origin and status through isotopic signatures, chemical markers that reveal diet and movement. Ancient DNA could check kinship and migration.

For now, the picture is steady and sobering. City life can reorder the ways societies mark a life and its memory.

The study is published in Scientific Reports.

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