A century-old archaeological excavation in Russia turns up a new surprise.
Nearly a century ago, archaeologists excavating a 8,200-year-old graveyard in northwestern Russia took note of a number of bone and animal-tooth pendants buried with the Stone Age people entombed there. But when researchers recently began to re-analyze the bone pendants to determine which species of animal each came from, they were in for a shock.
Of 37 pendants crafted from fragments of bone from 6 different graves, 12 turned out to be human, the analysis showed. These dozen pendants came from three different graves: two holding single adult men, and one of an adult man buried with a child. There may be other human bone pendants in the graveyard, Mannermaa said, but those artifacts are still being analyzed.
This apparent interchangeability doesn't mean that people viewed human bone as meaningless, said Amy Gray Jones, a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Chester in the U.K. who was not involved in the study. Animal bone pendants and tools from Stone Age Europe are often treated with care and disposed of in particular ways after being used, Gray Jones told Live Science.
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