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      Petrified animals: fossil beads from a Neolithic hunter-gatherer double burial at Zvejnieki in Latvia

      Antiquity
      Antiquity Publications

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          Abstract

          Abstract

          The cemetery at Zvejnieki in Latvia was in use from c. 7500–2600 BC, spanning part of the regional Mesolithic and Neolithic. This article presents a reanalysis of finds from a double inhumation burial of a male and a female dating to 3786–3521 BC. A unique leg ornament associated with the female is composed of tubular beads. Previously believed to have been made of bird bone, reanalysis of 68 of these beads now demonstrates that they were produced from fossilised sea lilies ( Crinoidea). This new identification of a rarely recognised raw material is discussed in the context of other hunter-gatherer encounters with unusual materials and their environments.

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          Beyond Art: Toward an Understanding of the Origins of Material Representation in Europe

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            Stone-age subsistence strategies at Lake Burtnieks, Latvia

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              The persistent presence of the dead: recent excavations at the hunter-gatherer cemetery at Zvejnieki (Latvia)

              The well-known Mesolithic cemeteries of Northern Europe have long been viewed as evidence of developing social complexity in those regions in the centuries immediately before the Neolithic transition. These sites also had important symbolic connotations. This study uses new and more detailed analysis of the burial practices in one of these cemeteries to argue that much more is involved than social differentiation. Repeated burial in the densely packed site of Zvejnieki entailed large-scale disturbance of earlier graves, and would have involved recurrent encounters with the remains of the ancestral dead. The intentional use of older settlement material in the grave fills may also have signified a symbolic link with the past. The specific identity of the dead is highlighted by the evidence for clay face masks and tight body wrappings in some cases.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Journal
                Antiquity
                Antiquity
                Antiquity Publications
                0003-598X
                1745-1744
                August 2020
                August 04 2020
                August 2020
                : 94
                : 376
                : 916-931
                Article
                10.15184/aqy.2020.124
                c417984a-135b-45a5-baa8-3f998d85105e
                © 2020

                https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms

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