A 5,000-year-old skeleton was discovered recently in the tiny town of Introd, during excavation work to create an addition to a school.
The skeleton has been assessed as female, and she was buried on her right side with her head facing west. No grave goods accompanied the burial.
The skeleton has already been excavated and moved to a laboratory, where researchers propose to figure out age-at-death, diet, and possible causes or contributors to her death.
This area of the Italian Alps was occupied in historical times by the Salassi tribe.
They were defeated and enslaved by the Romans, and the town became Augusta Praetorium Salassorum (now Aosta) in 25 BC.
If this skeleton can indeed be carbon-dated to the 3rd millennium BC, it makes the Lady of Introd relatively contemporaneous with Oetzi the Iceman in the late Neolithic.
Provided by The Archaeology News Network
