ABSTRACT BOOK: Abstract Book of the 24th European PPA, Leiden, The Netherlands, 21-24 August 2024

The Traisen valley south of the Danube river in Lower Austria is an outstanding archaeologically area for the Iron Age in Austria and of special interest for the project "CATA - Celts Across The Alps" funded by the Austrian Science Fund (Project P 36086-G). This interdisciplinary, international research project focuses on inhumations and cremations of three Early La Tène period populations from this area (Franzhausen, Gemeinlebarn, Walpersdorf), in comparison with three contemporary populations from Northern Italy (Marzabotto, Casalecchio, Carzaghetto). During detailed archaeological and anthropological investigations, graves 165 and 166 of Walpersdorf generated particular interest. The cremated bones of an adult individual (probable male) were placed in an urn (grave 165) next to the inhumation (grave 166) of an adult person (morphological sex unspecified) in a common square burial garden. This rare find situation of both graves is further enriched by the discovery of a new type of an early La Tène
belt hook (“type Walpersdorf”) in the urn burial 165 and by the exceptional traumatic and pathological changes of the individual from burial 166. This individual shows a healed skull impression fracture with signs of wound care, endocranial lesions (abnormal blood vessel impressions and periosteal appositions), healed traumatic injuries of several ribs with extensive new bone formation, extensive periosteal reactions on the long bones, and also
several perimortem cranial and possible postcranial injuries, which indicates a difficult and marked life and death.