Archaeologists discover ancient couple buried in 'spooning' position

It's one thing for dinosaurs to become fossilized while embracing one another, but it's not often that humans are deliberately buried in an embrace.

An international team of archaeologists has discovered a pair of skeletons were apparently buried "spooning" one another in Greece. DNA testing has confirmed that one skeleton belonged to a man, and the other belonged to a woman.

The male skeleton lies behind the female skeleton, with his arms around her. The researchers believe the couple was buried about 6,000 years ago, but they don't know how the people died or which person died first. Michael Galaty, an archaeologist from Mississippi State University, told Science Daily that the team still doesn't know why the couple was buried in the odd position.

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"There've only been a couple of prehistoric examples of this behavior around the world, but even when couples are buried together, they're beside each other and not typically touching," Galaty told Science Daily. "This couple was actually spooning."

The skeletons were found near the Alepotrypa Cave, one of southern Europe's most important ancient settlements. The cave was occupied from 5,000 to 3,000 B.C.E, Science Daily reports, during the Neolithic Age. The researchers believe the couple died around 3,800 B.C.E., and they will continue studying the skeletons to determine the causes of death.