This suggests that what was done to Individual 1’s body was not improvised on this specific occasion but reflected an established practice within the community, maintained through specialist knowledge and possibly transmitted across generations or across the social network of connected communities.

Whether this constitutes evidence for specialist mortuary practitioners in Iron Age Sutherland is not something the evidence directly confirms, but it is a reasonable inference from the specificity and skill evident in the modifications.

The Young Man Beside Her

The juvenile male buried with Individual 1 — second cousins, as the DNA analysis suggests — is a somewhat neglected figure in the public discussion of the Loch Borralie discovery.

The attention given to Individual 1’s remarkable post-mortem treatment has naturally dominated the coverage, but Individual 2 is part of the story too.