JERUSALEM, Nov. 6 (UPI) -- Israeli scientists say they've found the skeleton of a 12,000 year-old Natufian shaman buried with 50 tortoise shells, a leopard's pelvis and a human foot.
Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologists said the newly discovered shaman burial site is thought to be one of the earliest known and the only shaman's grave in the whole region.
Leore Grosman of the university's Institute of Archeology is leading the excavation at the Natufian site of Hilazon Tachtit, a cave in the western Galilee. He said the elaborate and invested interment rituals and method used to construct and seal the grave suggest the woman had a very high standing within the community.
Grosman said the grave also contained body parts of several animals that rarely occur in Natufian assemblages, such as the wing tip of a golden eagle, the tail of a cow and the forearm of a wild boar that was directly aligned with the woman's left humerus.
Grosman said the burial site is unlike any found in the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods.
The discovery is detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
