An early Neolithic burial place has been discovered in the Ulyanovsk region on the Volga, southeast of European Russia. Archaeologists found a skeleton apparently of a young woman who, in their estimate, lived in the 8th millennium BCE. The age will be defined more precisely by the radio-carbonic method in St Petersburg.
     Alexander Viskalin, who leads the expedition, saind that the skeleton found by his team lacks the skull, and this fact suggests a ritual to bury heads separately from bodies.
     Local school and university students worked alongside professional archaeologists as part of a project sponsored by the youth committee of Ylyanovsk's Mayor's Office.

Source: Pravda (30 July 2003)