One day, when archaeologists in Sweden were surveying a forest in advance of a construction project, they made a perplexing find — the battered skulls of people who had lived about 8,000 years ago, including two that still had pointed stakes in them, a new study reports.
The Stone Age burial site held the remains of at least 11 adults and one infant. Curiously, the burial wasn’t underground, but rather underwater: During the Stone Age, the skulls would have lain at the bottom of a small lake.
Only one of the people had a jaw, but there were plenty of animal jaws at the site. The archaeologists believe that the manner of burial indicates that a ritual accompanied it, but it’s impossible to know exactly what occurred, the researchers said. [Read more about the Stone Age Skulls]
