Contrary to popular belief, these places may not have served to bury elites, but to make parties and honor the dead.
Genetic bonds and incest evidence led a team of scientists in 2020 to consider that the iconic Irish tombs were places of grave for elite dynasties. However, a new study shows that they could be wrong.
“The remote past is fragmentary, so you need to be very careful when joining the pieces,” says archaeologist Jessica Smyth to. “We knew the painting was much more complex and that there was a richer story to tell.”
Firstly, Smyth’s team realized that previous investigators had sequenced only OGenomay of a maximum of four peopleusually even just one or two, of individual tombs that contained about 100 people. Decided to investigate.
“Many bones were simply not available because they had not been excavated, they had been removed or were in laboratories for other research projects. A significant number had also been cremated, making them ‘genetically invisible‘”Says archaeologist Neil Carlin.
After all, most of the calls were distant, like second or third degree cousins. “What we saw were not dynasties, but a mixture of different people, sometimes relative, sometimes not,” says Carlin. “And they are gathering. They are burying their dead. They are remembering their ancestors. They are building these monuments. And they are probably having parties as part of all this.”
Thus, the new, published in April in Archaeological Journal, reveals that, After all, these tombs could be a place of celebration, worship of the dead and tribute.
“It may have been a time when there were weddings, it may well have been a time to give rest to others,” says researcher Vicki Cummings of the University of Cardiff, UK. “It is almost certain that there were parties and celebrations. The element that unites all this is the construction of monuments.”
