Ancient burial ground found in Laos

Archaeologists from the Australian National University have unearthed ancient human remains in Laos, belonging to over 2500 years ago.

The discovery was made at the mysterious Plain of Jars in Laos. The jars are believed to have been buried at the site for over 2,000 years.

The excavations uncovered three different types of burials including bones placed in pits with a large limestone block on top, bones buried in ceramic vessels, and a single body in a grave.

"One theory is that [the jars] were used to decompose the bodies. Later, after the flesh was removed, the remains may have been buried around the jars.

"What is now clear is that these are mortuary and were used for the disposal of the dead," Dr. O'Reilly, lead ANU researcher, said.

He also added that the use of these jars was probably during the Iron Age of South-East Asia.

What we found were secondary burials, so these are human bones that have been collected up and buried around the jars and we don't have any evidence of cremation in those cases, O'Reilly noted.

According to him, in February, the researchers had found two different types of secondary burial as well as the first-known primary burial at the sites.

"They were either buried just bundles of bones or it appears they were put into ceramic containers and then buried," he said.

"But exciting for us, we also found evidence of primary burial, which hadn't been reported in Laos before, so this is a person who is just buried straight into a grave in the ground."

The ANU researchers hope this could solve the mystery of thousands of stone vessels scattered over the ancient plain in central Laos and also shed more light on day-to-day life of the people who used the burial system.

"This will open up a huge amount of information into who these people were," he said.

"We're trying to find evidence of occupation. Because these are mortuary sites, there's no evidence of people living near them.

"Indeed if the jars were used to decompose bodies you probably wouldn't want to be living in close proximity to them."