Prehistoric German men killed their love rivals

It seems that prehistoric German males would kill their "love rivals" to steal their women. It appears, from burial pit excavations that there is an absence of females and the males showed signs of being executed whilst bound.

It would appear that the local German women were a valuable and highly desirable commodity, is this still true today?

So, gentlemen, if you have any problems "pulling" at the Oktoberfest, it would seem a length of rope and an axe will help in this neck of the woods.

See BBC for the full story: Ancient man killed 'love rivals'

Maybe it was just the women killing off the men who drove them crazy?

Maybe prehistoric German ladies liked to see their men fight over them?

Couldn't it be that the women just happened to be out gathering herbs when the attack happened, or that they had died weeks before of some weird, striking-women-only disease? Sheesh, the assumptions these people make! And the one woman who DID get killed -- was she just that ugly?

Hah! Good point, DDBug! The women got the men drunk, bound them while they were unconscious, then axed them. Took care of the annoying kids while they were at it. Maybe some hot Neanderthals were coming over the mountains...

I read that it was all the oldey worldey Doug Muclure types that got up to this sort of thing.

They assumed it would the kind if think time would forget

Anything, be it men, women, food, water when in shirt supply will be fought over and people killed.

In an environment where there are few females, they become a resource to be fought over - no women - no kids - no men to fight over other resources etc.

However I think to use the term 'love rivals' is clouding the issue, this was most likly about power. In an environment with few females the males with all the birds so to speak have the power. No different to looking at how other animals act - 1 top dog etc with the pick of the chicks.

Now you may be asking how many other words for 'women' can I fit in.. Not many :-)

I guess looking back proves not only that way back, oh way back, way back when, we were just like the other animals around the place but that society has changed as we have moved on.

However we still manage to keep some of those old habits today.

Although I'd love the idea of a matriarchal society that kills off its men when they are no longer deemed useful or needed for sperm production, the fact that kids were found in the grave shows that that more than likely wasn't the case.

As I said, just like other animals.

When a male lion takes over the alpha role it has been known for them to kill the young the female already has.

Perhaps we are just unnatural in the scheme of things.

@ER.. if that type of society exosted we would be in the same position we are today. Who would open all the doors for the women who post feminism think its impolie to have to open the door for themselves

It's a good point re "assumptions." Archaeological remains (even more so than than literature) leave so many "gaps" for the interpreter to try to fill in and could, depending on the (religious?) context, mean so many different things. I wouldn't say that all the interpretation is relative, but there seems to be a fair bit of (un)informed speculation coming from the experts cited in the article. Did the archaeologists even consider a context of human sacrifice to appease the gods? Or, that executing men might be more common because child-bearing women would be of greater value to the clan?