The oldest known grave flowers have been discovered at a 14,000-year-old burial pit in Israel.
There were only impressions of the stems left imprinted into the burial site, but scientists believe the bouquet was made up of aromatic plants such as sage and mint, according to LiveScience.
The discovery "is the oldest example of putting flowers and fresh plants in the grave before burying the dead," study co-author Dani Nadel, an archaeologist at the University of Haifa in Israel said.
The ancient burial region is one of the oldest known sites; the area contains hundreds of skeletons. The burial pits were made by the almost 15,000-year old Natufian people from the Near East.
The Natufian culture was one of the first to give up a nomadic lifestyle and settle down. The people pioneered furniture building and crop cultivation, they even domesticated wolves.
Experts thought the tradition of bringing flowers to graves started much more recently, but this discovery proved that theory to be incorrect.
The Raqefet Cave (where the burial site lies) was given a thorough excavation in 2004 in order to study 29 skeletons containing nearby plant-stem impressions.
When the research team looked at the impressions under a microscope their suspicions were confirmed. The scientists found tiny phytoliths, microscopic crystals left behind by plants.
The new study shows ""meticulous, scrupulous research," Anna Belfer-Cohen, an archaeologist at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem wrote in an email to LiveScience. "Each Natufian site provides something new and exciting to our knowledge on those people about 15,000 years ago. Raqefet is rather a brilliant and an outstanding example."
Nadel noticed one pair of skeletons were buried in a very deliberate fashion, according to the National Geographic.
"They didn't just place the bodies inside the graves and leave," he said. "We have to envision a colorful ceremony that maybe included dancing, singing, and eating. They may have hunted a few animals and had a big meal around the graves and then threw bones or meat inside."
The team is now working on identifying the ages and genders of some of the skeletons.
