Archaeologists Unearth 12,000-Yr-Old Burial of a Woman, Believed to Have Been Shaman With a Spiritual Connection to Wild Animals

A 12,000-year-old burial site discovered along the Tigris River in south-western Turkey may be one of the earliest known shamanic graves in the region: a woman was found buried with the remains of wild animals, according to L'Anthropologie journal. Buried beneath the floor of a mud-brick building at Çemka Höyük, a Neolithic settlement in Turkey's Dargeçit district, lies a woman aged 25 to 30. What makes this burial exceptional is not its age, which hails from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period, but the extensive and elaborate display of wild animal bones around her body. The woman lay on her right side, facing west, with her grave uniquely sealed by a large block of limestone—an uncommon practice for that time.

Most intriguing was the placement of animal remains throughout the burial site. An aurochs' skull—an extinct species of wild cattle—lay above her chest, its separated jaw at her feet. The grave also contained carefully arranged bones from a partridge's wing, a marten's leg, and the remains of a sheep or goat, suggesting deliberate ritual placement rather than random inclusion.

According to the lead researcher, Ergül Kodaş from Mardin Artuklu University, what is impressive is the symbolic value of these wild animal remains, considering that burial predates the domestication of animals by thousands of years, as per Ancient Origins. The selected bones, particularly of the aurochs', and their deliberate arrangement in the grave suggest a deeper spiritual association between the deceased individual and nature.

The peculiar aspects of the burial have made the archaeologists consider that this woman was a dignitary in her community of hunter-gatherers. The limestone slab sealing her grave and the careful placement of the aurochs' skull might have performed a double service, both of them honoring her spiritual role and at the same time preventing her from going back to the world of the living. This ritual shows that such early sedentary people believed in complex systems of the afterlife. According to Steve Mithen, of the University of Reading, such burials reflect the time of crucial social and environmental change, according to Arkeo News. As communities began transitioning from purely nomadic lifestyles to more settled arrangements, people who could interpret natural phenomena and communicate with spiritual forces became increasingly important.

Interestingly, the burials of specially selected wild animals bear specific symbolic meanings. The partridge wing and marten leg bones, positioned at particular points around the body, might represent qualities like swiftness and agility. The aurochs, a powerful and formidable creature, could symbolize strength or protection in the afterlife. This discovery has striking similarities with another important find at Hilazon Tachtit Cave in Israel, where another female burial of the same period was also found with the remains of various animals, according to Science Alert. These parallel findings suggest a wider pattern of spiritual practices across the region during this important period in human history.