https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/800-year-old-hugging-skeletons-are-genetically-confirmed-as-polands-only-medieval-same-sex-double-burial

Typically, double burials of adults are interpreted as married couples. However, assumptions based on body position and physical sex estimation can be misleading. So in a new study, published in the September issue of in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, Cieślik and her colleagues analyzed the two skeletons’ DNA to better understand their relationship.

The DNA analysis confirmed that both skeletons were female and that they were not closely related, making the grave the first genetically confirmed same-sex burial in medieval Poland. But the researchers are unsure why two unrelated adult women were buried together.

Some unusual interments in the medieval period were intended to ritualistically prevent the dead from returning or causing harm. These feared individuals — sometimes called “revenants” — were typically buried in isolation and in unholy ground, and were often decapitated or weighed down with stones. But the women’s burial next to the cathedral walls ‪—‬ a position often reserved for kings and local notables ‪—‬ and the lack of other evidence of protective rituals suggest that these women were not marginalized by society.

Medieval legal and religious sources harshly condemned same-sex partnerships, often punishing them with execution. If these women had been suspected of being lovers, they would not have been afforded such a prominent grave, the researchers wrote in the study.

The women’s exact connection to each other remains a mystery, but past relationships came in diverse forms.