New Research on the Girl with the Bird Skull in Her Mouth
The child’s skeleton was found over fifty years ago with a chaffinch skull inside its mouth, and another next to its cheek. The use of shallow graves within caves was a burial practice that dates back at least 4000 years. However, the radiocarbon dating of the bones reveals a hard life riddled in malnourishment and places the child’s death sometime between 1750 and 1850 AD.
Why was the burial hidden for so long? Who was this child and who buried them? Could these be the remains of a family ritual or something much more sinister? Currently researchers are attempting to answer these questions and more.