Archaeologists investigate mystery of graves reopened 1,400 years ago - Livescience.com

People living across Europe around 1,400 years ago had a habit of reopening graves and taking out objects for reasons that archaeologists are trying to understand, according to a new study. .

"The practice of reopening and manipulating graves soon after burial, traditionally described — and dismissed — as 'robbing,' is documented at cemeteries from Transylvania to southern England," a team of researchers wrote in a paper published June 18 in the journal Antiquity. .

They found that between roughly the sixth and eight centuries A.D., people frequently opened graves and took out objects for reasons that don't seem linked to grave robbery. .

The researchers also found that many of the items removed from the graves were in poor condition, particularly the swords, and would have had no practical use or economic value, the researchers said.

Since it takes just a few years for bodies to rot in most conditions, "those graves were opened very soon after burial," Klevnäs told Live Science in an email. .

Why people removed items from the graves is unknown, but the archaeologists believe the motivations probably varied from place to place.

"Swords and brooches are some of the most symbolically laden objects in the graves," Klevnäs told Live Science in an email.

"The reopening custom spread over western Europe from the later sixth century and reached a peak in the seventh century," study co-author Astrid Noterman, a postdoctoral researcher at Stockholm University, said in the statement.

"I think it's going to be very difficult to say exactly why people removed 'grave goods,'" Yves Gleize, an archaeologist with the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research in France, said in an email. 

One concern Gleize expressed was that the study researchers attempted to determine when objects were removed by estimating the corresponding stage of decomposition of the body inside that particular grave