In the 1970’s in Pommerœul, Belgium, a rather puzzling grave was found. Amidst several 2nd-3rd century cremation burials, a skeleton lay with its legs in an atypical position and significantly deeper than the other burials. However, because of its place in between the cremation burials and the finding of a Roman pin near the skeleton, it was assumed that the body was also from the same Gallo-Roman era.
Recent research has shown that this skeleton was not one person, but several. The bones from the feet alone come from five to seven different individuals. Most of the different bones in the skeleton date back from several periods between 3333 BCE and 2675 BCE (the Neolithic era), but a couple of bones from the cranium are from the Roman era, the same time period as the bone parts found in the cremation graves. What’s more, several much older badger bones were also found in the same grave, stemming from the 4th and 6th millenium BCE.
The reason how and why such a burial could can exist is not clear. Ancient burials that are disturbed in later times are not unheard of, for reasons from bone removal to moving bodies to another place. But burials containing skeletons with bones of many individuals from different eras are very rare, with only a couple of other examples known in other parts of Europe.
Many questions are raised but cannot (yet) be answered. The assembling of the bones was clearly intentional. But it is not clear whether this was done in Neolithic or Roman times. It’s also not clear whether the Roman era cranium bones were added because these same bones from the Neolithic era were missing, or whether the Neolithic bones were replaced by the Roman bones.
It remains a mystery why all this was done. Was this skeleton perhaps regarded as a representation of the ancestors, or the people who lived on this land before the Romans came? Either way, these new finds add new strands to the rich tapestry of ancient Europe and the people who lived here.
You can read more here: Assembling ancestors: the manipulation of Neolithic and Gallo-Roman skeletal remains at Pommerœul, Belgium | Antiquity | Cambridge Core
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