Post by UKarchaeology on Jul 13, 2015 15:07:41 GMT
Traces of intentional injury in the form of cuts to the femur have been discovered on an individual found during excavations carried out in the Western Desert in Egypt this year. The researchers say that it is the first known case of such treatment from the Neolithic period in this part of Africa.
The discovery was made by a Polish expedition led by Prof. Jacek Kabaciński from the Poznań branch of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology. The research area in the desert is called Gebel Ramlah and is located near the southern border of Egypt with Sudan, about 140 km west of Abu Simbel. The team has been working there since 2009 and has made some important discoveries, including an unusual cemetery of newborns.
2015 season
This year, they discovered another part to the cemetery and investigated a further 60 burials, but this time belonging to adults. In Grave 11 which contained the remains of two people, one bore traces of deliberate damage to the body in the form of cuts to the femur.
Another unusual burial contains a man whose body was showered with fragments of broken pottery, stone artefacts and lumps of red ochre. His remains were also noteworthy as numerous bones showed an overgrowth of femoral bone, fractures and abnormal bone adhesions. Above his head archaeologists found a fragment of Dorcas gazelle skull with horns, which they say may have served as a headdress, worn during a ceremony. Similar finds known from European Palaeolithic and Mesolithic sites suggest that it is a grave of a person who performed magical rites, perhaps associated with hunting.
(source: www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/07/2015/investigating-a-neolithic-cemetery-in-the-western-desert _