Project Gallery Beetle body parts as a funerary element in a cremation grave from the Hallstatt cemetery in Domaslaw, south-west Poland Agata Haluszko 1,2 , Marcin Kadej 3 & Anna Józefowska 4 1 Institute of Archaeology, Maria Curie-Sklodowska University in Lublin, Poland 2 Archeolodzy.org Foundation, ´ Swidnica, Poland 3 Department of Biology, Evolution and Conservation of Invertebrates, University of Wroclaw, Poland 4 Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, Poland Author for correspondence: Agata Haluszko ✉ agata@archeolodzy.org The discovery of an ornament made from Phyllobius viridicollis beetles in a cremation grave at the Domaslaw cemetery highlights the diverse use of organic materials in funerary rites. Together with dandelion pollen, the find offers interpretative potential for reconstructing the seasonal timing of the burial. Keywords: Eastern Europe, Early Iron Age, Urnfield culture, archaeoentomology, scanning electron microscopy, Phyllobius sp., pollen Introduction Organic elements identified at Urnfield culture cemeteries are usually limited to cremated bones and charcoal fragments. In rare cases, pseudomorphs of textile fabrics have preserved (Gleba & Mannering 2012). Until now, there has been no conclusive evidence for the use of insects as decorative elements by prehistoric communities (Huchet 2014; Haluszko et al. 2022). More than 800 cremation graves dating to the Hallstatt period (c. 850–400 BC) were discovered at the Lusatian Urnfield culture cemetery in Domaslaw (51°0 0 39.96 00 N, 16°56 0 30.696 00 E) in 2005–2007 (Goslar 2019)(Figure 1A & B). Most of the graves contained a standardised set of vessels along with numerous imported items, such as swords, bronze vessels, ornaments and toiletry items (Figure 1C & D), providing evidence of intensive contact between the community buried there, important subalpine centres of the Hallstatt culture and groups from the Mediterranean region. Grave 543 is one of the most impressive (Figure 2A). The burial pit was the deepest discovered in the cemetery, containing a square, log chamber. Ecofacts and artefacts were discovered in the backfill of the grave chamber. Received: 31 March 2025; Revised: 18 May 2025; Accepted: 26 June 2025 © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Antiquity Publications Ltd 1 Antiquity 2025 page 1 of 9 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10182 https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2025.10182 Published online by Cambridge University Press