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3,000-Year-Old Remains of an Infant Found in Ireland

Wednesday, June 4, 2014

COUNTY MEATH, IRELAND—A baby’s intact skeleton has been discovered at Tlachtga, on the Hill of Ward in Athboy. The child is thought to have been between seven and ten months old at the time of death. “We may never know what caused the death of the child. The skeleton probably dates back 3,000 years and was found on the bedrock at the base of a 1.5 meter ditch,” Stephen Davis of University College Dublin told The Meath Chronicle. The site is thought to have been a key ritual site where Samhain was first celebrated with the lighting of the winter fires. Davis doesn’t think the baby’s death was sacrificial, however. 

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