3500 Year old Skeleton

3500 Year old Skeleton found in Jatni, Khorda, Bhubaneswar, Odisha

Anthropology department of Utkal University’s Researchers have identified the 3500-year-old skeleton, excavated by a team of research sholars at Asurabindha near Banga village of Harirajpur gram panchayat on the outskirts of Jatni town in Khordha district on March 13 this year, to be that of a woman.

Revealing this at a press briefing organized by the department of Anthropology of the university here on Friday, Prof Kishore Kumar Basa and Prof Sabita Acharya of the Utkal University and Dr Bina Musrif Tripathy of Deccan College, Pune, informed that the age of the woman was between 30 and 35 years.

They, however, said carbon dating method would be applied to ascertain the exact age of the woman.

They also said that the DNA test would be conducted on another male skeleton, excavated from Banga village in 2013, to ascertain whether the woman had any relationship with him. The two skeletons were found lying at distance of 3-4 feet, Dr Basa said.

He also informed that sex of an infant’s skeleton found inside a pot and lying near the male skeleton, has not yet been determined.

The anthropology professor said since these two skeletons belong to the Copper Age they could be 3000 to 4000 years old. “We have decided to send these two skeletons to Hyderabad for carbon dating”, he informed.

He also said that during the study, it has been found that the feet of the male skeleton has been cut while the woman’s skeleton has remained intact which shows that the people they probably followed a custom of severing the feet of male persons before burying them.

Speaking on the occasion, Prof Sabita Acharya said from the X-Ray examination conducted on the skull of the woman’s skeleton has revealed that she had a low iron content in her body. “Though the exact cause of her death is not known, it has been found that the woman was in good health since there is no evidence of any infection in her bones during the study”, she pointed out.