Archaeologists Find First Known Gay Caveman Near Prague

An unusual burial may have outed the world's first known gay caveman, whose bones were discovered outside Prague in a grave that indicates he was homosexual or possibly transgendered.

During the Copper Age 5,000 years ago, men were traditionally buried facing the west, along with weapons and knives. But archaeologists in the Czech Republic say the skeletal remains of the newly discovered caveman were found facing the east, along with household items like water jugs and pots, funeral rites almost always reserved for women in the region during that time.

rchaeologists have unearthed the 5,000-year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world's oldest known gay caveman.

Europics

Archaeologists have unearthed 5,000-year-old male remains in Bubenec, Czech Republic, buried in a way normally reserved only for women of the Corded Ware culture in the Copper Age. The skeleton was surrounded by domestic jugs.

"From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously, so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake," archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova told reporters Wednesday, according to London's Telegraph. "Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual."

Researchers said they'd seen other graves from the period in which female warriors were buried using rites usually afforded to men, but never a grave in which a man was buried in the style of a woman. Katerina Semradova, another researcher, said the discovery is one of the earliest known cases of a "third-gender grave," according to the Daily Mail.

Archaeologists also found an oval-shaped pot near the man, an artifact generally buried with women. "What we see here does not add up to traditional Corded Ware cultural norms," Vesinova said.

The man, who lived sometime between 2900 and 2500 B.C., is believed to be part of the Corded Ware culture, which flourished in the area now known as Europe.