Starting from the Late Natufian, a unique funerary phenomenon is observed in the Levantine fossil record – the removal of craniums from primary burials and their reburial in a different location. This practice continued into the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, when the removed craniums were further modified before redeposition. The skulls were colored, plastered and ornamented. Associations between craniums and their post-cranial elements hold important information regarding the structure of society during these periods, yet they mostly remain unknown.

We created a novel method to match cranial and post-cranial remain based on the surface of the first vertebra (atlas) and the occipital condyles.

When comparing real (true) cranium-atlas pairs to mixed (false) pairs from different individuals, the fit error is considerably lower.These results indicate that surface fit could be used to determine which craniums belongs to which atlases and associate the primary burial location with the secondary cranial deposition.