The study, conducted by an international team of collaborators including Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam  found the first case of murder in history. The research was published in journal PLoS ONE. Research was carried out at the site of the Sima de los Huesos (Northern Spain), located deep within an underground cave system & contains the skeletal remains of at least 28 individuals that date to around 430,000 years old (i.e. from middle Pleistocene period).

A nearly complete skull from the Sima de los Huesos is composed of 52 cranial fragments recovered during excavations at the site over the last 20 years. This skull shows two penetrating lesions on the frontal bone, above the left eye. According to Quam, it is the Evidence for interpersonal violence in the human fossil record is relatively scarce, and this would appear to represent the coldest cold case on record. They have studied it through modern forensic techniques, such as contour &  trajectory analysis of the traumas, the authors of the study showed that both fractures were likely produced by two separate impacts by the same object, with slightly different trajectories around the time of the individual’s death. According to the authors, the injuries are unlikely to be the result of an accidental fall down the vertical shaft. Rather, the type of fracture, their location and that they appear to have been produced by two blows with the same object lead the authors to interpret them as the result of an act of lethal interpersonal aggression—or what may constitute the earliest case of murder in human history.