SADOWLE, POLAND—Twenty-three grave pits containing human and animal bones, pottery vessels, flint axes, and wild boar fangs have been discovered in a Neolithic cemetery in south-central Poland, according to a Science in Poland report. Wojciech Pasterkiewicz of the University of Rzeszów said the cemetery belonged to people of the Globular Amphora Culture, who lived in Central and Eastern Europe and produced characteristically bulbous pottery. Vessels produced for funerary use were not as carefully formed and fired as those produced for everyday use, Pasterkiewicz explained. Each of the stone-lined graves in the cemetery held between two and six people, and were covered with stone slabs or wooden beams if the pit was very large. The burials were eventually reopened and parts of the skeletons were removed, he added. Animals and animal parts were also buried in rectangular, stone-lined pits. “Cow and pig skeletons are most common,” Pasterkiewicz said. “Such graves are often referred to as ‘sacrificial pits’ because they contain the remains of animal[s] dedicated to the deceased.” Geophysical surveys indicate that about two-thirds of the cemetery has been investigated to date. To read about another Globular Amphora Culture burial of 15 blood relatives, go to "We Are Family."
