Shrouded in Mystery: The Mortuary Behaviour at Old Lady Spider Cave, (Ladakh)

Veena Mushrif-Tripathy1*, Quentin Devers2, and Sonam Dolma1

The present paper discusses the finding of human skeletal remains discovered at Yougma Kharbu, District Kargil. Ladakh and understand its context. The cave is locally known as Abi Srinjamo Cave at the altitude just above 4000 m. There are several legends associated with the deposition of human remains at the site. The site was excavated in 2021 to understand the context of these bones and what culture they are associated by Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute in collaboration with The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France. It was funded by National Geographic Society. Based on the AMS, the site is dated from 3rd century CE to the early 7th century CE. In the three-room cave complex, bones were found in second and third room in commingled context. Three trenches were taken in the first and second room of the cave and it was observed that the deposition of the bones was only confined to the surface. These remains were probably kept in the primary context but later got disturbed by continuous human interferences. After analysing the bones from the site, the assemblage has both male and female individuals belonging to various age brackets. Most of the pathological lesions are related to degenerative joint disease indicating individuals died due to old age. This observation indicates the cave site was most probably used for the burying the dead.