Achavanich Beaker Burial

Ava was found interred in a burial cist with a beaker, flints, a cow scapula, and possibly flowers.

[1] On 19 February 1987 Robert Gourlay, Gemma Corcoran and Sarah Hargreaves conducted the excavation of a burial cist in Achavanich, Caithness, Scotland.

[3] Approximately 41–60% of the skeleton remains intact today, including a majority of the skull, left femur, and some thoracic and lumbar vertebrae.

The skull also appears to be very broad and short with a cranial index of 89.6, classified as hyperbrachycephalic, which is unusually high in comparison to modern day humans.

In 2017 a sample of Ava's right tibia and a piece of the cattle scapula was sent to the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) for further analysis.

As for the missing mandible, Morrison used techniques written and developed by Wilton M. Krogman in his book, The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine.

[8] However, in 2017, Inigo Olalde from the Reich Laboratory at Harvard Medical School discovered, based on her ancient DNA, that Ava in actuality had very different coloring, most likely with black hair, brown eyes and tanned skin.

It measures 16.5 cm in height and is decorated with comb incisions that form horizontal lines, herringbone, triangular and criss-cross impressions.

Further analysis of the beaker revealed the presence of multiple different types of pollen, including meadowsweet, pine, and birch.

There were dry breaks to the bone which were likely a result of postmortem influence, either by the people who killed the cow or from natural breakage.

The scapula shows no evidence of human manipulation for tool use, allowing for the conclusion that it was likely placed in the tomb with flesh still present on the bone as a food offering to Ava.