Archaeologists have found the 12,000-old skeleton of a female shaman buried in northern Israel alongside 50 tortoises, body parts of a leopard, a boar and other animals as well as a human foot.
The burial site is among the earliest known of a shaman, or healer, according to the archaeological team led by Leore Grosman of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

The grave was found during excavations of a 12,000-year-old cave site of the Natufian culture in Hilazon Tachtit, in the Galilee area of northern Israel.
Analysis of the bones show that the shaman was 45 years old, petite and had an unnatural, asymmetrical appearance due to a spinal disability that would have affected the woman’s gait, causing her to limp or drag her foot.
The burial site was unlike any from the Natufian or the preceding Paleolithic periods discovered to date, said Grosman.