During excavations on a highway in the Czech republic, archaeologists were able to uncover an ancient monument from around B.C. 4000.
The monument is actually a huge burial mound that spans roughly 620 feet.
600-Foot Ancient Monument Found
The discovery was announced by a University of Hradec Králové (UHK) team. It is situated on the border of Lípa and Dlouhé Dvory villages and is believed to be from around B.C. 4000.
This makes the discovery one of Europe's earliest funerary monuments. Such dimensions also make the discovery one of the longest and largest structures found in central Europe.
Initially, the archaeologists were able to uncover an elongated trapezoidal gutter during road works in the area. They then recognized the discovery as a "usual" structure of an ancient burial mound called a long barrow.
Petr Krištuf from the Department of Archaeology at the Faculty of Arts at UHK noted that these kinds of mounds are typically found in northwestern Bohemia. They have not been documented reliably across Eastern Bohemia.
On top of this, the specimen examined serves as the longest ancient mount discovered not only in the region but possible across entire Europe as well.
The team was able to conduct excavations on the long barrow's entrance.
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Central Burials
The Department of Archaeology shared in a Facebook post that such burial mounds were constructed as monumental funerary objects and that they cover graves. The burials of the individuals for whom the mound was built are called "central" burials. These individuals likely had high status.
Two central burials were recorded by the team in the long barrow. The first one featured the skeleton of a human on the left side, facing towards the north. It also contained a ceramic grave offering.
As for the second one, it contains a different body on the left side while being directed towards the north. It also has five chipped stone artifact offerings that consist of flint.
A younger pit that archaeologists think could be a burial pit disturbed this grave. However, this younger pit was not found to host any remains of humans. Whether the pit was truly a grave or not will be seen through further analysis.
Aside from these three discoveries, another grave was also discovered by archaeologists. However, this grave had human remains that only consisted of skull fragments in a poor state of preservation.
In order to get a more comprehensive picture of the deceased individuals, researchers are examining the grave samples.
Krištuf explained that similar mounds across Central Europe typically contain just one to two burials. From such a perspective, it would be interesting to observe how the graves could be linked to one another and whether they actually serve as representations of relatives.
Krištuf further noted that the significance of the long mound is not solely due to its size. Based on initial findings, the monumental burial was there for several centuries. Moreover, ritual and funeral activities of local individuals also happened within the area.
Because of this, the area was a ritual place of significance and a landscape landmark during that period of time.
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