RESEARCHERS from a Scottish university have studied a 9,000-year-old disembodied skull in a bid to understand more about the oldest case of decapitation ever discovered.

Experts from Dundee University's Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification examined the remains which were discovered by Andre Strauss, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, while he was working at a site in eastern Brazil.

The remains also included severed hands which covered the face, with the left hand over the right side of the face, fingers pointing up, and right hand over left side, pointing down. It has been suggested that the hands may have been arranged to mark some form of symbolic ritual.

The new find has sparked questions about how hunter-gatherers managed to carry out such a gruesome act with such few tools.

Professor Sue Black, director of the Dundee University centre, compared the remains to those of a modern-day case of decapitation. She said her forensic team's research suggested the head was partially cut off then manually pulled and twisted.

She said: “Examining the skull, we saw fractures consistent with hyper extension of the head and rotation. There would also have been cutting but the fracturing of the neck bones indicated a violence to the region.”

The paper has been published in the PLOS-ONE Journal.