Numerous archaeological findings show that the human brain does not decompose in the same way as the whole body

A new study has cataloged human brains found at archaeological sites around the world and found that this magnificent organ is much more resistant to decay than we thought. Even when the rest of the body’s soft tissues have completely “dissolved” the brain is still there.

Opening details

Alexandra Morton-Hayward and her team from Oxford University work in the field of taphonomy. It is a science that studies how living organisms decompose and petrify after death, preserved in the paleontological record. Them More than 4,400 preserved human brains dating back 12,000 years have been identified. The results of the study contradict previous claims that the human brain is one of the first organs to decay after death.

It is well known in the field of forensic medicine that the brain is one of the first organs to decompose after death. But this huge archive clearly shows that there were certain conditions that ensured its survival.
says Morton-Hayward.

Whether these conditions are environmental or related to unique brain biochemistry is the subject of current and future studies. Scientists are finding that a surprising number of ancient types of biomolecules are preserved in these archaeological brains.

A 1000-year-old human brain stained orange with iron oxide from Ypres, Belgium / Photo: Alexandra L. Morton-Hayward

Archaeological preservation of soft tissues, where the body is left in nature (rather than artificially preserved through mummification or freezing), is a rare phenomenon. Experimental studies of decay have shown that the brain is one of the first organs to undergo decay.

The preservation of a human brain in a body where everything except the bones had decayed was believed to be incredibly rare, almost the only one of its kind. Morton-Hayward and colleagues wanted to know how rare this really was, so they launched a global search for preserved human brains.

They carefully examined all the published scientific literature they could lay their hands on and consulted historians from around the world. They generally documented 4,405 preserved human brains from 213 sources from all continents of the worldExcept for Antarctica, in records beginning in the mid-seventeenth century.

A mastermind at the First Baptist Church of Philadelphia, founded in 1698 / Alexandra L. Morton-Hayward

The samples came from different environments:

• From a mass grave during the Spanish Civil War, where the brain was preserved even after devastating gunshot wounds.
• Sandy deserts of ancient Egypt.
• Victims of Inca ritual sacrifices at the extinct Llullayaco volcano around 1450 AD.
• Tollund man, who lived in 220 BC, was found in a peat bog.
• The brain found on the shores of a lake in Sweden dates back to the Stone Age.

The environmental conditions in which these brains were found were related to natural pathways to protection. These are dehydration, freezing, tanning (for example, in peat bogs) and saponification, in which oils are converted into waxy forms.

unknown mechanism

Something else stood out: Of the 4,405 brains, an incredibly large number (1,308, or nearly a third of the total) were the only soft tissue structures preserved in fully skeletonized remains. And these were some of the oldest brains, whose age reached 12,000 years..

Brain fragments from a person buried in a waterlogged Victorian cemetery nearly 200 years ago. These were the only soft tissues that did not completely dissolve in the grave / Photo: Alexandra L. Morton-Hayward

It’s a way to protect brains cannot be attributed to natural conservation conditions. They have been found in places such as shallow and mass graves, tombs, shipwrecks, burial mounds, and even decapitated heads. According to researchers, this shows that: May be a soft tissue protection mechanism specific to the central nervous system.

What this mechanism is is still a big question mark, but researchers believe it may be an interaction between brain molecules and something in the environment. For example, proteins, lipids, and sugars in the brain can combine to form stable polymerized macromolecules in the presence of certain metals, such as copper, which are abundant in the brain.