Assembling ancestors: the manipulation of Neolithic and Gallo-Roman skeletal remains at Pommerœul, Belgium

Abstract

Post-mortem manipulation of human bodies, including the commingling of multiple individuals, is attested throughout the past. More rarely, the bones of different individuals are assembled to create a single ‘individual’ for burial. Rarer still are composite individuals with skeletal elements separated by hundreds or even thousands of years. Here, the authors report an isolated inhumation within a Gallo-Roman-period cremation cemetery at Pommerœul, Belgium. Assumed to be Roman, radiocarbon determinations show the burial is Late Neolithic—with a Roman-period cranium. Bioarchaeological analyses also reveal the inclusion of multiple Neolithic individuals of various ages and dates. The burial is explained as a composite Neolithic burial that was reworked 2500 years later with the addition of a new cranium and grave goods.