7,000-year-old grave found at Leipzig school construction site Archaeologists in Leipzig uncovered a roughly 7,000-year-old Neolithic grave during school construction, the oldest ever found within the city limits. Archaeologists have uncovered 7,000-year-old human remains during excavations at a school construction site in Leipzig, Germany, revealing an ancient burial site with historical significance. The Saxony State Office for Archaeology announced the discovery in late September. The grave is approximately 7,000 years old and is the oldest ever discovered within Leipzig's city limits, officials said. Archaeologists were brought in ahead of the school's construction because the site was near a previously known Bronze Age archaeological site."Prehistoric finds were also to be expected simply because of the site's flood-free location near the White Elster River, within the fertile Leipzig Lowland Basin, an area exceptionally rich in archaeological finds," officials said in a statement. Instead of simple artifacts, the excavation uncovered the remains of an ancient Neolithic settlement, including the roughly 7,000-year-old grave. The grave dates to a period when people were transitioning from hunting and gathering to living in permanent settlements, farming and raising livestock.Linear Pottery Culture BurialThe person buried there is believed to have belonged to the Linear Pottery culture, named for its distinctive spiral and wavy patterns. The discovery of a burial within the settlement came as a surprise, officials said. Although officials have not identified the person's sex or age at death, the skeleton was found lying on its left side with its legs drawn up. The grave contained no grave goods, objects buried alongside the dead.Archaeologists estimated the age based on the skeleton's crouched position and the grave's relationship to the settlement and one of its houses. In large parts of Saxony, bone preservation is so poor that graves can only be identified by objects placed in them and the shapes of burial pits."In this case, the crouched position of the body, together with the grave's direct stratigraphic relationship to the settlement and one of its houses, makes it possible to date the burial to the Neolithic Linear Pottery culture, even in the absence of grave goods," the statement said. "This means that the approximately 7,000-year-old burial is the oldest grave discovered to date within the city limits of Leipzig," officials added. Archaeologists will continue excavating until the middle of this month.The Saxony State Office for Archaeology is then expected to begin scientific analysis."Our investigations in Leipzig-Möckern demonstrate very clearly how important the involvement of archaeology is, even in urban areas," Smolnik said in a statement. "Although such sites have long since become part of the urban landscape and have been built over for many years, important evidence of prehistoric and early historic settlement can still be documented there," Smolnik added.