Archaeologists Excavating a Roman-Era Cemetery in Poland Were Surprised to Stumble Upon a 5,000-Year-Old Necklace Made of 42 Teeth

Excavations in Poland have unearthed a 5,000-year-old grave, complete with a man’s skeleton, two other skulls, amber beads, a flint knife, a stone ax and a necklace made of 42 sharp teeth. The grave was discovered at an archaeological site near Żórawina, in southern Poland. The site is known for a Roman-era cemetery that dates back to the fourth or fifth century C.E.

Researchers led by Tomasz Gralak, an archaeologist at the University of Wrocław, and Paweł Dąbrowski, an anthropologist and anatomist at Wrocław Medical University, excavated the site this summer. Just before wrapping up their work on the Roman graves, the researchers spotted the circular outline of a barrow—an ancient burial mound—Dąbrowski says in a statement from Wrocław Medical University. In time, a tightly fitted row of single-peaked teeth came into view, Dąbrowski tells Roman Skiba of the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

Each was drilled through at the root, and their arrangement suggests they were once strung together on a now-decayed rope. The find may be linked to the Corded Ware culture, named for the twisted-rope impressions that are characteristic of its ceramic pottery. He says the closest comparison is a necklace unearthed in Wojkowice, composed of just four teeth and dating to the Bronze Age.

The Żórawina necklace, by contrast, dates back several thousand years earlier, to Poland’s Middle Neolithic period, or the New Stone Age, per the statement. Its dental charms came from large mammals, like wolves, deer, young bears or maybe even humans, Dąbrowski tells PAP. Gralak says that Stone Age burial mounds typically belonged to patriarchs.

The funky jewelry may have been a collection of hunting trophies or a gift. And the hunter was someone important, Dąbrowski tells PAP, like a family clan leader. In the burial mound’s deeper layers, researchers found a nearly complete adult male skeleton, fragments of two separate adult skulls, amber beads that might have been jewelry, a cutting tool made of flint and an ax of greenish serpentinite.

The style of the ax, which was chipped from use, led researchers to date the grave to around 2900 B.C.E. Soon, the researchers will use radiocarbon dating to figure out the skeleton’s exact age. They’ll also analyze genetic material in the skulls and teeth to determine genders and species, and attempt to discern the teeth owners’ diets through analysis of wear patterns and levels of strontium, carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the enamel.