Following the excavation by a team of GUARD archaeologists in 2020, the results of specialist analyses have only now come to light.
The oldest of the stone-lined graves, or cists, was dated to 2467-2290 BCE. Strangely, it contained no human remains, but only fragments of pyre material, which appear to have been sufficient to represent the dead.The largest of the three cists cist 1, and cist 3, were constructed at least three centuries later c.2140-1930 BCE. Both contained the cremated remains each of at least two adults and a child or young person, but with no grave goods.
Iraia Arabaolaza, the principal author of the published excavation report, said: ‘The long span of time between these cist graves indicates the lasting memory of burials here. The reuse of the burial place at different periods may have reinforced land ownership or connections to ancestors’.