“Unraveling Secrets: What This Mysterious Stone Age Burial Site in Sweden Reveals About Ancient Rituals”
Here’s what was found: 11 adult human skulls, the skeleton of an entire infant (likely a stillborn or died shortly after birth), and the bones of 14 animals from seven different species.
This massive finding launched a major excavation from 2009-2013, with the findings and research being published in Antiquity Journal.
The findings were bizarre and not just because they were from eight millenniums ago.
The first oddity was the particular arrangement of the skulls and bones. The human skeletons were in the middle of the burial site, with the bones of brown bears placed south of the humans and the bones of wild boars placed south-east of the humans.
Sara Gummesson/Fredrik Hallgren/Antiquity 2018Examples of the trauma found on the skulls.
The specific way in which the bones were placed indicates a very intricate ritual. What does the ritual mean? It’s a good question and one that nobody can answer. As this is the first of its kind case among Mesolithic humans, scientists are left with very little answers.
There are also clear indications of violence inflicted upon the dead. All the adult skulls had signs of blunt force trauma to the head, meaning a physical attack. Even weirder, the location of the head injuries differed based on sex. Female skulls were found to have injuries on the back and right of the head, while the injuries to male skulls were on the front of the head.
In another twist, indications of healing and recovery demonstrate that the head trauma wasn’t the thing that killed these stone age people. Though the fractures to the heads were clearly notable, they weren’t to be outshone.
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