Stone Age burial with 42-tooth necklace found near Żórawina, Poland
Archaeologists digging a Roman-period cemetery near Żórawina in southwestern Poland have uncovered a much older burial: an adult man laid in a roughly 5,000-year-old mound with a necklace of 42 perforated teeth, a serpentinite battle axe, amber and bone beads, and a flint blade.
The find was reported in early September 2026, including coverage by Live Science and a detailed account via Arkeonews.
Excavations are directed by Professor Tomasz Gralak of the Institute of Archaeology at the University of Wrocław. The team includes Dr Paweł Dbrowski, an anthropologist and anatomist at Wrocław Medical University. The prehistoric grave appeared late in the season as a circular feature about four metres across beneath the known late Roman / Migration Period cemetery (~1,600 years ago).
Provisionally dated to about 2900 BCE from the form of the serpentinite axe, the burial may belong to the wider Corded Ware cultural horizon — that association is provisional pending radiocarbon work. The nearly complete male skeleton lay with a carefully arranged necklace of 42 root-perforated teeth. Dąbrowski’s preliminary reading is that they may come from several mammal groups (canids, bears, hoofed animals); whether any tooth is human is not yet excluded. Genetic tests are planned.
Fragments of two incomplete adult skulls were also recovered in the same grave. Researchers have floated a preliminary hypothesis that they could be severed heads placed as offerings they flag that as speculative until cut marks or other trauma can be checked and distinguished from later damage. Ancient DNA may show whether those individuals were related to the man.
Radiocarbon dating, aDNA, isotope work (including strontium), and osteology are planned. Another similar mound was recently reported at Iwiny near Wrocław; comparing the two could clarify Corded Ware-linked presence and mobility in Lower Silesia. First lab results are expected in the coming months.
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