Overview

• Peer-reviewed research in PLOS One analyzed flaked stone artifacts from the Zvejnieki cemetery using a multiproxy approach as part of the Stone Dead Project.
• Women were as likely or more likely than men to be buried with stone tools, and children and older adults were the age groups most frequently given lithic grave goods.
• Microscopic wear studies identified tools that were deliberately made but left unused, as well as items intentionally broken for deposition in graves.
• The findings challenge the long-standing 'Man the Hunter' model and caution against inferring the sex of infants based on the presence of lithic tools.
• Zvejnieki, one of Europe’s largest Stone Age cemeteries with over 330 graves used across millennia, points to shared funerary traditions across the eastern Baltic.