in the Alvastra pile-dwelling in Sweden had been scalped approximately 5,000 years ago.

Georg Friederici noted that "Herodotus provided the only clear and satisfactory portrayal of a scalping people in the old world" in his description of the Scythians, a nomadic people then located to the north and west of the Black Sea. Herodotus related that Scythian warriors would behead the