9,000-Year-Old Skeletons Found in Jordan had been Dismembered, Sorted, and Buried in Homes

Archaeologists have made an unusual discovery in a prehistoric village in Jordan – the skeletal remains of more than 70 people that had been dismembered then allowed to decay. After this, their bones were sorted by type, and the collections were buried in stone cists inside houses. Researchers have suggested the practice may have been based on a belief about keeping the dead and their spirits among the living.

Haaretz reports that the discovery was made at Shkārat Msaied, a 9,000-year-old village in a valley just north of Petra, by a team of archaeologists from the University of Copenhagen.

“This well-preserved site is of archaeological and historical importance as it was inhabited in a period marked by crucial developments in subsistence strategies as people began to experiment with cultivation of plants and herding of animals,” reports the Shkarat Msaied Neolithic Project.  “The semi-arid landscape on which the Shkarat Msaied site is situated was mainly occupied by mobile hunter-gatherer groups, living in circular shaped buildings of more substantial character than previous and with a rich and diverse material culture.”