RIGA, LATVIA—Stone tools, especially items such as blades and projectile points, have long been associated solely with men. This is largely due to traditional views that men played the role of hunters in Mesolithic and Neolithic societies, while women took on more domestic responsibilities. According to a statement released by the University of York, however, a new study has challenged these stereotypes. Researchers from the Stone Dead Project recently examined the contents of burials from the Zvejnieki cemetery in northern Latvia. One of the largest Mesolithic and Neolithic burial sites in Europe, the necropolis contains more than 330 graves dating to between 7500 and 2500 b.c. Surprisingly, investigators determined that women were just as likely, and perhaps even more so, to be buried with stone tools than men. Additionally, children and older adults were the most common age group to be interred with these items. This demonstrates that stone tools were part of much more complex burial customs than previously thought, and shatters the concept that they should only be associated with men. “The study highlights how much more there is to learn about the lives—and deaths—of Europe’s earliest communities, and why even the seemingly simplest objects can unlock insights about our shared human past and how people responded to death,” said University of York archaeologist Aimée Little. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS One. To read about the burial of an infant in northwest Italy 10,000 years ago, go to "Update: Mesolithic Baby Carrier."
