The Unirils are easy to imagine.

We've all seen enough depictions in television and film to know what they look like, and while

those practices and traditions have changed over the millennia, and differ from one culture

to another, those changes happen slowly, making it easy to define what normal was at any

given point.

But there are always exceptions.

In the world of archaeology, they are referred to as Deviant Barriels, when the grave of a

long dead human is found but doesn't fit the expected conditions.

The skeleton might be arranged in a particular way, or missing parts, or both, and its believed

barriels like this were designed as a sign of disrespect.

Some Deviant Barriels and ancient times were performed because the person died by suicide,

while other times it was one last punishment for a convicted criminal.

If society viewed their life or death with suspicion and disdain, a Deviant Barriel was

a likely choice.

But sometimes, those unusual barriels happened for other reasons.

One grave site that was excavated in the 1980s in the Czech Republic revealed a stone-aged

man who had been pinned in the grave with a large post.

In a 2000-year-old Greek Barriel on the coast of Sicily, two skeletons were found with great

weights on top of them, and in medieval England, some were buried with millstones on top of

their grave.

But the most common deviation from the norm in barriels around the world is a simple yet

obvious change in body position.

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