Stone Age Women Buried With Tools And Weapons

Researchers discovered that some 6,000 years ago in the northern reaches of modern Latvia, a young woman died. Afterwards, a group of early humans buried her in an ancient, sacred place along a lakeshore. They carefully lowered her small teenage frame into the ground, gently placing a stone ax, 28 flint flakes, 15 blades, and a stone scraper beside her.

Stained with ochre, the stone implements were part of her last rites. This young woman remained there thousands of years, until, when archaeologists discovered her along with more than 300 others in the 20th century. The site, known as Zvejnieki cemetery, is one of Europe’s largest Stone Age cemeteries.

Research conducted at Zvejnieki has often challenged longheld assumptions about gender roles in prehistoric Europe. For instance, the young woman interred in burial 211 described above is one of several women and children buried with stone axes at the site, upending the notion that axes only belonged to Stone Age men.

Now, a new study published September 10 in the journal PLOS One again upends gender stereotypes, demonstrating that women and children were just as likely to be buried with stone tools as men. The woman in burial 211 alone was laid to rest with a staggering 45 different stone objects.

Nestled along the northern shore of Lake Burtnieks in northern Latvia, Stone Age communities used the Zvejnieki burial site for more than 5,000 years. Archeologists estimate that it was first used around 7,500 BCE, and was abandoned sometime around 2,500 BCE.

Zvejnieki remained untouched for more than 4,000 years, a veritable treasure trove of the Stone Age waiting to be discovered. Then in the 1960s, Lake Burtnieks’s northern shore was used as a gravel quarry. Latvian workers harvested rock from the small hill along the lake, eventually discovering a human skull amongst the rubble in 1964.

Archaeologists soon swooped in, and immediately noticed Stone Age graves exposed along the quarry’s walls. The quarry was closed and a team of archaeologists carried out an extensive dig between 1964 and 1978. In 2005, another large dig was conducted and lasted four years. So far, a total of 330 individuals have been found at the Zvejnieki cemetery, making it one of the largest sites of its kind in Europe.

Led by Dr. Aimée Little from the University of York’s archaeology department, the new study takes a closer look at the stone tools found at Zvejnieki. As part of the Stone Dead project, the new research demonstrates how tools played an important role in Stone Age funerary rites. While some tools seemed specifically made for gravesites, others were broken into pieces as part of intricate rituals.