PHILIPPINES: Skeletal remains dating to more than 9,000 years ago tell of a previously undocumented burial ritual involving disarticulation, defleshing, crushing, and then burning. The fragmentary bones bearing signs of this complex activity were buried in a shallow pit outside the mouth of Ille Cave. Five other sets of remains found there bear similar marks. Clearly, it was an elaborate process, but much is still unknown about the culture that engaged in it. —Samir S. Patel