Mesolithic burials and possibly earliest cremations in Europe

September 19, 2026GreeceBioarchaeologyShare

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Key facts

• In the lower Mesolithic levels, Jacobson's team uncovered a cluster of eight burials near the cave mouth
• Two were cremations with bone showing moderate to severe heat alteration from deliberate burning; six were inhumations
• One famous burial: a young man about 25, laid on his back in a shallow pit, legs folded behind, hands on chest, on a bed of crushed shell and ash, with a small mound of stones
• The young man died from blows to the forehead and was profoundly anemic, possibly suffering from malaria
• J. Lawrence Angel and later David Cook re-examined human bone and found fragments of up to 25 individuals throughout the Mesolithic layers
• Adults, adolescents, infants, and neonates are represented, the full spectrum of a community
• Tracy Culleton's re-study dated the two cremations to 9,500 to 8,600 BCE, which may be the earliest deliberate use of fire in the treatment of the dead in Europe
• Mesolithic occupants imported andesite millstones from the Saronic Gulf to grind wild plants, indicating long-distance sea travel networks

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