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Name : Bad Dürrenberg headdress
What it is : An accoutrement made from deer antlers and boars ' teeth and tusks
Artistic impression of the Bad Dürrenberg shaman in full regalia
Where it is from : Bad Dürrenberg , Saxony - Anhalt , Germany
When it was made : Around 7000 to 6800 B.C.
Related : Doban - kun : A ' precious ' man - shaped counting tool from prehistorical Japan
What it tells us about the past :
This headdress is just one of legion artifacts discovered in 1934 in the lavish grave of a cleaning woman who live on during the European Mesolithic period ( 15000 to 5000 B.C. ) . The unique array of grave goods and the malformations of the woman ’s systema skeletale suggest that she may have contain a particular social role , such as a shaman .
TheBad Dürrenberg burialis one of the oldest in central Germany . It consists of the frame of a woman who was between 25 and 40 years one-time when she died , as well as the fragmentary remains of an infant across her lick . However , the sister was n’t hers ; it was a fourth or fifth degree relative , enquiry found . The tomb was filled withred ochrepowder and contained a number of unusual objects , such as a hollow crane os that was used as a container for flyspeck stone knife ; a polished axe ; a deer os that was used to enforce reddened ochre ; and at least 50 pendants made from cow , bison and deer teeth .
The artifacts were not the only unique aspects of the burial . Thewoman ’s skeletonwas also atypical in that her first cervical vertebra , which connects the spine to the skull , was on an irregular basis shaped and partly amalgamate . This bony anomaly may have caused the cleaning lady to have unusual sense experience — like the touch sensation of Snake or ants crawl on or under her cutis — or involuntary foolish eye movements , either of which may have marked her as different from a young age .
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Based on the artifact and bone , experts at theState Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology Saxony - Anhaltthink the char may have been a shaman or a spiritual healer — someone who could bridge over the domain of the living and the beat as well as curative diseases . They retrace the woman ’s headdress based on the drill of shamanism known from Siberia and elsewhere in northern Eurasia . The various animal bones , shells , tusks and antlers could have been strung together as a shamanic mask and headgear .
The Bad Dürrenberg priest-doctor was one of the last of the Mesolithic huntsman - collector who experience in Europe presently before citizenry adopt agriculture and became sedentary . She may have roamed a dense birch timber in search of go away plot animals , using her headgear and masquerade to take the form of a spirit beast like a Energy Department . But in the conclusion , this last Mesolithic shaman may have snuff it of a dental abscess that spread out , causing multiple infections in her sinuses and , finally , her death .
