Cracking a Stone Age ‘Cold Case’ Dating Back 5,000 Years

Discover why the remains of a Neolithic house fire in Ukraine provides clues about how early Eastern European people lived and died.

By Paul Smaglik
Dec 11, 2024 7:01 PMDec 12, 2024 3:28 PM
Ukrainian Neanderthals
Archaeological context of Kosenivka. A: Map showing the location of the settlement of Kosenivka and the Chalcolithic sites referred to in the text. B: Photo showing the location of house 6 within the landscape. C: Photo showing house 6 being excavated, in 2004 (Credit: Fuchs et al., 2024, PLOS ONE; (Map: R. Hofmann. Photos: republished from Kruts et al. [22] under a CC BY license with permission from V. Chabanyuk, original copyright 2005).)

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Archaeologists have investigated a Ukrainian site that might lend itself to a police procedural show — perhaps named CSI: Stone Age.

The site near Kosenivka embodies mystery on many levels. Although an estimated 15,000 Neolithic people living in what is now Eastern Europe about 5,000 years ago, there are relatively few human remains. And when they have been found — like the 50 fragments in one house at the Kosenivka site — how the inhabitants died remains unknown.

Researchers have now presented a report that tries to solve the mystery of their demise, as well as shed some light on how they lived, in a PLOS ONE report.

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