A team of archaeologists from Kiel University and the Institute of Archaeology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences unearthed an unusual mass grave at the Neolithic site of Vráble in Slovakia. Vráble was inhabited from about 5250 to 4950 B.C. by people belonging to what scholars call the Linear Pottery culture. At its peak, the site consisted of three neighboring settlements of around 80 houses in all, making it especially large for the time. The team discovered 37 skeletons missing their skulls in a ditch surrounding one of the villages. Mass graves have been found in ditches at other Linear Pottery sites, but none excavated thus far have contained decapitated bodies. Evidence of large-scale massacres at other mass graves suggests the Linear Pottery people entered a period of crisis around 5100 B.C. The headless burials at Vráble may have been part of a response to this upheaval. “The ritual depositions could be some kind of social coping mechanism of a magical or religious nature that people performed to get back control in a time when things seemed to be falling apart,” says archaeologist Martin Furholt. Excavation and dating of other settlements in the area show that they were being abandoned around the time the headless bodies were buried. Meanwhile, the population at Vráble was growing, perhaps a result of newcomers seeking security in an increasingly unstable world.

An excavation team led by archaeologist Katerina Janakakis of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Chania has uncovered ruins of an odeon, or roofed theatrical building, in the ancient city of Lissos on the southwest coast of Crete. Thus far, the team has unearthed 14 rows of seats, two vaulted side chambers, and part of the stage, all constructed from local limestone. The odeon was built in the first century A.D., when Lissos was a prosperous Roman city. The settlement was heavily damaged, likely during a devastating earthquake in A.D. 365 that leveled other cities in the eastern Mediterranean. Although odeons typically hosted musical performances and poetry competitions, Janakakis believes this particular building might also have served as a gathering place for government authorities. “Lissos was a small, provincial city,” she says, “so it’s a rather logical assumption that the odeon might have had a double use, judging by its form and location in the center of the city.”

While digging beneath the transept of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral, archaeologists from the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) recovered two lead sarcophagi. The first was sealed within a masonry tomb in a privileged position at the threshold of the cathedral’s choir. An epitaph identifies the deceased as Antoine de la Porte, a cleric who paid for renovations to the choir and died in 1710 at the age of 83. Three bronze medals depicting de la Porte were found atop the coffin. De la Porte’s polished teeth and slender bones indicate a life of leisure befitting someone of his position. Furthermore, explains biological paleoanthropologist Eric Crubézy of the University of Toulouse III–Paul Sabatier, he has lesions on a big toe that appear to be characteristic of gout. “Because gout is associated with rich food and excessive alcohol consumption,” Crubézy says, “it has been considered a disease of elites.”

The other coffin, which dates to the sixteenth or seventeenth century, was found west of the transept. “The coffin’s contours sharply follow the shape of the head, shoulders, and hips, which seems to suggest that it was adapted to the deceased’s body,” says INRAP archaeologist Christophe Besnier. The unidentified man died around the age of 30 of chronic tuberculous meningitis. His hip socket shows he rode horses starting in early childhood, and the treatment of his remains further signals his elevated status. “He was embalmed, his thorax opened, and the top of his skull sawed off,” Crubézy says. “Opening the skull and thorax is found only in subjects of the high nobility.”

To read more about excavations in Notre Dame, go to "Exploring Notre Dame's Hidden Past."