WARNING! THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS PHOTOS OF HUMAN REMAINS
Funeral rites are among the most enduring and, at the same time, most diverse elements of human culture. It is the precise way in which the dead are treated that allows archaeologists to reconstruct not only the funeral practices of ancient societies, but also their conceptions of death, transience, memory, and relations with ancestors. Sometimes, though, archaeological discoveries defy simple interpretations, forcing researchers to take a closer look at phenomena that previously seemed well understood. This is the case for an extraordinary burial discovered in Pommerœul, Belgium. The grave, found in a cremation cemetery dating to the Roman period, turned out to be a much more complex funerary structure, combining remains from various periods of the Neolithic. The results of interdisciplinary bioarchaeological, genetic, and radiocarbon analyses revealed a multi-phase history for the burial, shedding new light on funeral practices and the way in which ancient communities treated the remains of their ancestors.
