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7.16.2008
Cavemen and their relatives in the same village after 3,000 years
Uwe Lange meets a recreation of one of his Bronze Age ancestors
The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents — give or take a generation or two.
The bad news is that their long-lost ancestors may have grilled and eaten other members of their clan.
Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood. Thanks to DNA testing of remarkably well-preserved Bronze Age bones, they can claim to have the longest proven family tree in the world. “I can trace my family back by name to 1550,” Mr Lange said. “Now I can go back 120 generations.”
Mr Lange comes from the village of Nienstedt, in Lower Saxony, in the foothills of the Harz mountain range. “We used to play in these caves as kids. If I’d known that there were 3,000-year-old relatives buried there I wouldn’t have set foot in the place.”
The cave, the Lichtensteinhöhle, is made up of five interlocked natural chambers. It stayed hidden from view until 1980 and was not researched properly until 1993. The archaeologist Stefan Flindt found 40 skeletons along with what appeared to be cult objects. It was a mystery: Bronze Age man was usually buried in a field. Different theories were considered. Perhaps some of the bodies had been offered as human sacrifice, or one generation had been eaten by another.
Read the rest on the Times Online.
