Mysterious remains assembled from the bones of 5 people

A set of remains excavated from a Roman cremation cemetery in the town of Pommerœul, Belgium, surprised scientists because it was made up of the bones of at least five people who lived in different periods, Live Science reported on November 5. New research published in the journal Antiquity.

During excavations of the cemetery in the 1970s, experts found 76 cremated graves and one grave in which a human remains was buried in the fetal position. Related artifacts and burial methods show that the cremation tombs belonged to the Romans, dating from the 2nd – 3rd centuries. Although burial in the fetal position is quite unusual for Roman cemeteries, the group Excavation found a Roman-style bone pin near the skull and concluded that this tomb most likely also belonged to the Roman period.

In 2019, carbon isotope analysis confirmed that every cremation tomb in Pommerœul dates back to Roman times. But what is surprising is that specimens from remains in the fetal position have many different dates belonging to the Neolithic period (7000 – 3000 BC).

In a new study, archaeologist Barbara Veselka from Vrije University Brussels and her colleagues learned more about the strange tomb through many techniques, including bone analysis, carbon dating and DNA sequencing. ancient.

“It is possible that more than five people contributed to this ‘individual’, but the number of people confirmed by DNA is five,” Veselka said. Carbon dating determined that the Roman bone pin located near the skull existed from 69 – 210, while genetic analysis determined that the skull belonged to a Roman woman, around the century AD. 3 – 4.

These analyzes raise further questions, for example, why was the skull of a Roman woman in a Neolithic tomb and why did the tomb contain the bones of so many people?

The team believes that the Romans may have accidentally disturbed a Neolithic tomb when burying cremated remains, then adding skulls and bone pins to complete it before filling the grave. Another possibility is that the Romans used scattered Neolithic bones and a Roman skull to form an “individual”.

“Whether the bone assembly took place in the late Neolithic or Roman times, the presence of this ‘individual’ was clearly intentional,” the team wrote. However, the purpose of the Romans when building this tomb is still a mystery. According to scientists, perhaps they were inspired by superstition or felt the need to connect with an individual who lived in this area before them.