Stone Age Grave of a Child(?) – initial results from Majoonsuo

In October 2018, I joined the Finnish Heritage Agency in excavating an ochre grave in Outokumpu. As partial results of the fieldwork were recently published, I wrote a short article on the excavation and my experiences to Kalmistopiiri. As the article is in Finnish, I will here briefly summarize the central points regarding this unique and fascinating site.

Sunny morning at Majoonsuo excavation site. Photo: Sara Långsjö.

As stated before on this blog, ochre is a natural clay earth pigment, that has had various uses since the Stone Age. Besides being used as a pigment for rock paintings and small objects, it was also once used on graves. Around 60 such graves, dated to the Mesolithic and Neolithic periods, have been discovered in Finland. Besides ochre, the graves typically contain stone tools and flakes, and especially the Comb Ware graves have contained a plenty of amber, flint and slate objects. However, human teeth or bone has been found only from nine sites.

Slightly damaged layer.

Because the grave in question lied beneath a dirt road, it was in danger of road use and weather conditions – surface layer had already been slightly damaged. Thus it was time to excavate it properly and our team was called on the field. While the ochre stain had been determined as a grave in a test excavation a few months earlier, we were the ones to dig it up completely. Along with the grave, we excavated some other remains of Stone Age activity, such as a sizable concentration of animal bones currently under osteological research.

Ochre graves are not the most typical sites for excavation and all possible information was sought out of the site. Thus, the grave itself was dug in thin 1 cm layers and all ochre-stained soil was packed in bags for laboratory analysis. While the grave itself contained only quartz flakes and two arrowheads instead of  rich grave goods, we discovered remains of teeth, that will also reveal more of the person buried thousands of years ago. However, based on the size of the grave (1 x 0,4 m), it can be estimated to be a grave of a small child. Based on the typology of arrowheads and radiocarbon dating results (7521–7337 BC) from adjoining animal bones, the grave was estimated to be Late Mesolithic.

In preliminary laboratory tests, soil samples from the grave have revealed three contemporary hairs, one of which was identified being from a dog. As the soil itself was surprisingly fatty, it will go through lipid residue analysis at a later date. Further research of the hair remains, DNA extracted from the soil and osteological material are also ongoing and awaiting for future publications.