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A possibly enslave woman may have been executed with a sharp weapon in what is now the Papua province of Indonesia , a Modern study finds .
Only the skull of the dupe is available for analysis , but it revealed that the cleaning lady was between 26 and 42 year old when she was killed .
The injuries on the skull of the woman examined using both digital and ultraviolet light photography.
" Multiple sharp force trauma injuries were identify on the head-on , temporal , and occipital bones of the brainpan , " the researchers wrote in a newspaper publish Sept. 16 in theInternational Journal of Osteoarchaeology . The team used digital and ultraviolet picture taking to examine the injury on the skull .
The woman lived in what scholars call Indonesia ’s " colonial period , " a time between the 16th and mid-20th century when the state was controlled by European mogul . The skull was find on Biak Island in 1935 by scientists from Airlangga University in Indonesia . The year and the word " Biak " ( which may consult to the Biak people ) is written on the skull , investigator mention in the study .
During the colonial full point , Europeans went on striver maraud and capture local people . The Dutch , who controlled Indonesia during much of this time period , practiced far-flung captivity .
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It ’s possible that the woman was kill as part of these raids , but " it is impossible to distinguish if the cranium analyse in this study belonged to a victim of inter or intra - tribal war , or if they were kill as a slave " field conduce authorRizky Sugianto Putri , a forensic anthropologist at Airlangga University , told Live Science in an email . " However , the implementation - style wounds on the braincase financial support that the individual was kneeling or sitting and was not able to champion themselves actively . "
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The squad noted that female sorcerers be intimate as " mon " were highly seek during raid . That enhance the question as to whether this woman could have been a sorcerer .
The identity element of her killers is also unclear . " We do not know who killed her . However , the acuate - force-out psychic trauma wounds were consistent with a parang , a weapon commonly used by Papuan tribes in the colonial menstruation , " Sugianto Putri said .
Little enquiry has been done on human remains in Indonesia that date to the colonial full stop . Putri hope that this paper , and next research , will exuviate more light on how people lived and snuff it during this period .
