The breakthrough was reported by the journal Scientific Reports, and Teresa Fernández-Crespo, an archaeologist at the University of Valladolid in Spain.
The paper detailed how archaeologists “teased apart” the bones in order to learn how they met their grizzly end.
Among the injuries sustained included evidence of traumatic blows, including from arrows.
Other elements detailed were indicators of poor health, high population pressure, and the emergence of difficult cultural groups.
According to Live Science, the bones showed signs of “a more sophisticated and formalized way of warfare than previously appreciated in the European Neolithic record”.
Researchers for the piece said there was also the possibility that a complex conflict within the community that lived could have led to a bloodbath thousands of years ago.
“Fernández-Crespo said: “We think we are seeing the result of a regional inter-group conflict,” Fernández-Crespo told Live Science in an email on Thursday.
“Resource competition and social complexity could have been a source of tension, potentially escalating into lethal violence between communities.”
Ryan Harrod, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, laid bare his own thoughts on the discovery.
Though not part of the study, he said that the injuries showed signs of the violence being more “sophisticated” as opposed to “epic”.
He added: “The fact there were more nonlethal compared to lethal injuries on the 338 individuals might indicate that the regional clashes were not epic battles or warfare.”
