Most of the bones date from the Neolithic era, and the skull from Roman times.
The skeleton, which was found during excavations in Belgium in the 1970s, turned out to be “composed” of the bones of at least five people from the Stone Age and a skull from Roman times. This was revealed in a new study of the remains, which was published in the journal Antiquity.
A grave with a “composite” skeleton was opened about 50 years ago at the burial ground in Pommerœul. It turned out to be the only burial in the necropolis performed according to the rite of inhumation (deposition of a corpse). The remaining burials were cremations. There were 76 of them in total, they dated back to the 2nd–3rd centuries AD. The “inhumation” burial was located at a greater depth, and the arrangement of the bones was atypical for Roman times: the buried person was laid on his right side with his legs bent (usually they were placed on his back). But a Roman bone pin was found next to the skull, so the burial was dated to Roman times.
Now the bones from the necropolis have been studied again. As expected, the remains in the cremations date back to Roman times, but the bones from the “inhumation”, judging by radiocarbon dating, are much older – the Neolithic era. At the same time, the Stone Age bones also have a temporal scatter: the earliest of them date back to around 3333 BC. e., and the latest – by 2675 BC. It was not possible to determine the age of the skull using the radiocarbon method, but the bone pin that lay next to it dates back to 69–210 AD. In addition, DNA extracted from the skull showed that two relatives of its “owner” were buried close in time and not very far away – about 160 kilometers away, between 211 and 335 AD.
As if to confuse the situation, the burial also found the bones of three different badgers, which are noticeably older than humans: 5971–5746 BC. e. and 3625–3375 BC.
Human bones, as you can guess from their age, also belong to different “individuals”. Judging by the bones of the feet and fingers, these are the remains of seven different people – five adults and two minors. DNA analysis of the skull and long bones suggests they are from five different people. It was not possible to determine whether these “seven” and “five” coincide.
The researchers offer two possible explanations. The first version is that the main burial took place in Neolithic times. It was then discovered during the Gallo-Roman period when cremation remains were being buried. For some reason, the Neolithic burial did not have a skull, and the Roman community “supplemented” the skeleton with the skull of its contemporary. In any case, the pin was placed at this time and, most likely, as a funeral gift. According to the second version, the entire skeleton was “assembled” in Roman times from scattered Neolithic remains that were accidentally discovered nearby, and a “Gallo-Roman” skull. Considering that the position of the skeleton on its side is not typical for Roman times, the first option is more likely.
Based on materials The History Blog
Source: www.nkj.ru
