Bad Dürrenberg burial

The woman had two incompletely formed vertebrae in her neck and associated malformations of the foramen magnum, the hole through which the spinal cord passes, and related blood vessels.

The grave is situated on a terrace above the east bank of the River Saale in what is now a spa garden near the modern town of Bad Dürrenberg, 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of Halle in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.

A local teacher was alerted to the find, who in turn contacted Wilhelm Henning, a conservator at the Halle State Museum of Prehistory.

[4][2] The area where the burial was found was scheduled for redevelopment for the 2022 State Garden Show, so in 2019 the grave was located and entirely removed in two blocks for controlled excavation in a laboratory.

The antlers of a two-year-old roe deer buck show signs of skinning and manipulation, indicating they may have been part of a headdress.

[4][1] Initially, it was thought the grave belonged to a Neolithic man based on the presence of a polished stone axe and blades and biological anthropologist G. Heberer's study of the skull, which he assigned to a mature male;[3][2] this was later worked into Nazi propaganda, with the burial cast as an Aryan.

Radiocarbon dating, first conducted on the woman's skeleton in the 1970s, confirmed she lived around 9,000 years ago, 7000–6800 BC, during the Mesolithic.

[3][4] The adult skeleton was well preserved and recovered largely complete in 1934; additional smaller bones from the hands, feet and spine were found during the re-excavation of the grave.

Signs of wear to the vertebrae in her lower back and torso combined with facets on her leg bones indicate she spent a lot of time kneeling.

[4] Harald Meller [de], director of the Halle State Museum of Prehistory, suggests her teeth were deliberately filed as part of a ritual.

[3] The open pulp cavities led to infection in one of the teeth and the formation of an abscess that spread to the maxillary sinus.

In the 1950s, H. Grimm suggested the atypical appearance of the foramen magnum was due to decapitation but there is no evidence of cut marks.

[1][4] Around 6400 BC, approximately 600 years after her death, a pair of antler headdresses were buried 3 ft (0.91 m) from her grave, suggesting she was remembered and revered centuries later.

She may have been a direct relative, such as his great-great-grandmother (in which case they were buried at different times), or she may have been an aunt or cousin several generations removed (which possibility allows for them living contemporaneously).