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"The boy is the big spoon, and the girl is the little spoon: Their arms are draped over each other, their legs are intertwined. "They're totally spooning," Parkinson said of the last pair. A second burial contains the bones of a young man and a young woman facing each other in curled poses, their knees tucked beneath their chins, and the final burial contains the embracing couple. One burial holds the remains of a child and a newborn. Radiocarbon dates for the three double burials range from 4200 to 3800 B.C. The most recent finds lie at the top of a terraced slope just outside the cave. The site was rediscovered in 1958, and excavations began in the 1970s. There are bones from at least 170 individuals inside the cave.Īround 3000 B.C., an earthquake collapsed the cave entrance, sealing and preserving its interior.
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Its enormous interior chambers reach more than half a kilometer into a mountain above Diros Bay, and burials in the cave span the entire Neolithic period in Greece, from 6000 to 3200 B.C. The Alepotrypa-or "foxhole"-Cave represents one of the largest Neolithic burial sites known in all of Europe. "Like most things in Greece, it's complicated," said Bill Parkinson, associate curator of Eurasian anthropology at Chicago's Field Museum and one of the archaeologists working at the site. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īrchaeologists also found bones from two other Neolithic double burials, as well as a roughly 3,300-year-old Mycenaean ossuary holding bone fragments from dozens of individuals and numerous expensive grave goods, including a bronze dagger, agate beads, and ivory likely sourced from Lebanon.