The oldest tomb of a girl in Europe, full of ornaments, shows that women were valued as whole people from birth
10,000 years ago, just after the last Ice Age, a group of hunter-gatherers buried a girl in a cave in what is now Liguria, in northwestern Italy. The little girl, who died before she was two months old, was buried with a rich collection of possessions and adornments: more than 60 pierced beads, four pendants, and an eagle owl claw. The study of her burial, the oldest known of a girl in Europe, demonstrates not only the pain of her community for her loss but also the recognition of women as whole persons since her birth. It didn’t matter her sex or her young age. ‘Neve’, as the researchers have nicknamed the baby, was dismissed equally, as was done with any other member of the group.
Arma Veirana, the cave where the burial is located, belongs to a pre-alpine area that is much visited by local inhabitants. Looters also discovered the site, and their excavation exposed late Pleistocene tools that drew researchers to the area. The scientific team began to inspect the site in 2015, although the remains of the girl were not discovered until two years later in the depths of the cave. As the exploration progressed, perforated shell beads turned up and a few days later, the big surprise: a small piece of a baby’s cranial vault.
“I remember looking at it and thinking, ‘That’s a strange bone,’” admits Claudine Gravel-Miguel of Arizona State University (ASU). “It quickly became clear that we were not only looking at a human skull but that it was also a very young individual. It was a very emotional day », she assures.
Using dental tools and a small brush, the researchers carefully exposed the entire skeleton, which was adorned with articulated lines of perforated shell beads. Analysis of the protein amelogenin and ancient DNA revealed that the baby was a girl belonging to a lineage of European females known as haplogroup U5b2b. And radiocarbon dating determined that she had lived 10,000 years ago.
There is a good record of human burial before about 14,000 years ago, “but the late Upper Palaeolithic and early Mesolithic periods are less well known when it comes to burial practices. Baby burials are especially rare, so ‘Neve’ adds important information to help fill this gap,” said Jamie Hodgkins, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Colorado Denver.
A study of Neve’s teeth showed that she died 40 to 50 days after birth and that she experienced stress that briefly stopped the growth of her teeth 47 and 28 days before she was born. Carbon and nitrogen analyzes of her teeth revealed that her mother had been eating a soil-based diet during pregnancy.
Whole person
Gravel-Miguel carried out an analysis of the girl’s ornaments, which demonstrated the care invested in each piece. Many exhibited wear that proves they were passed down by group members. For the researchers, the burial is reminiscent of a similar burial of two babies from 11,500 years ago in Upward Sun River, Alaska. Their treatment of ‘Neve’ suggests recognition of her as a whole person. Perhaps this has deep origins in a common ancestral culture that was shared by the peoples who migrated to Europe and those who migrated to North America. Or it may have arisen in parallel in populations all over the planet.
According to the authors, who publish their findings in ‘Scientific Reports’, mortuary practices offer a window into the worldviews and social structure of past societies. The child funeral treatment provides important information about who was considered a person and who had the attributes of an individual self and the possibility of being a member of the group. The apparently ‘egalitarian’ funerary treatment of this girl shows that as early as 10,000 years ago in Western Europe, even the youngest women were recognized as whole persons in their society. “The evolution and development of how early humans buried their dead, as revealed in the archaeological record, is of enormous cultural significance,” Hodgkins says.
Furthermore, the researchers believe that their study may also help archeology stop being seen “through a male lens”. Archaeological reports “have tended to focus on male stories and roles and in doing so have left many people out of the narrative. Without DNA analysis, this highly decorated child burial could possibly have been assumed to be male,” says Hodgkins, who recalls, for example, how DNA has proven the existence of female Viking warriors, leaders, and powerful Bronze Age rulers. “Finding a burial like ‘Neve’ is a reason to look more critically at the past of archaeology,” she stresses.
