Overview
- Researchers report that a small adult known as Hora 3 was intentionally cremated at the HOR-1 rock shelter roughly 9,500 years ago, identifying the world’s oldest in situ adult pyre.
- The study, led by Jessica Cerezo-Román and colleagues, documents about 170 bone fragments primarily from limbs, indicating a woman between 18 and 60 years old who stood just under five feet tall.
- Microscopic and sediment evidence shows a purpose-built pyre fueled by at least 30 kilograms of wood and grass that reached temperatures above 500°C and was actively tended during burning.
- Cut marks on several bones and the absence of skull and teeth suggest pre-cremation disarticulation with the head likely removed, a pattern the authors interpret as deliberate mortuary practice tied to remembrance.
- HOR-1 preserves at least 11 individuals across millennia yet only this case shows pre-burial cremation, with context provided by older burned remains at Lake Mungo without a pyre and an earlier child pyre in Alaska.