burial

A remarkable archaeological discovery in northern Germany is shedding new light on the spiritual world of early hunter-gatherer societies. Researchers investigating the prehistoric wetlands of the Duvensee Moor in Schleswig-Holstein have uncovered the skull of a wild aurochs that had once been mounted on a wooden post near what is believed to be the oldest known cremation burial in northern Germany, offering a rare and extraordinary window into Mesolithic ritual life some 10,500 years ago. According to the release by LEIZA, the discovery suggests that early Mesolithic communities practiced complex funerary rituals involving animal symbolism and possibly spiritual protection for the dead. Archaeologists say the find offers rare evidence of belief systems at the dawn of the current warm period