9,000-Year-Old Shaman Skeleton Reinterpreted in Halle Exhibition

A 9,000-year-old skeleton, long misidentified as male and stored in a museum archive, has been revealed as a female shaman through new scientific methods. The Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle is presenting these findings in a special exhibition. The display features the shaman's remains adorned with a curtain of strung deer teeth, wild boar tusks framing the face, and an antler headdress. Blue-eyed and with a gaze that once rolled rhythmically, the figure from Bad Dürrenberg represents a spiritual practitioner previously thought to have emerged only in more recent times. This discovery challenges existing perceptions of the Mesolithic period in Saxony-Anhalt. The exhibition transports visitors into this little-known era, highlighting the sensational nature of the reinterpreted grave find.