I absolutely want to see the movie for which this story is the mid-credits epilogue. Archaeologists Bewildered by Skeleton Made From Bones of at Least Eight People Who Died Thousands of Years Apart:

During a recent reexamination of the bones, researchers noticed peculiarities. For instance, the skeleton's spine appeared to be made of both adolescent and adult vertebrae. [...] Veselka's team used radiocarbon dating to analyze the individual bones; they also sequenced ancient DNA found in them. They found that the skeleton is made of bones from at least eight unrelated men and women. [...]

Placed in the fetal position, it was the only intact body in a graveyard containing 76 cremation burials. Because of a bone pin found near the head, researchers initially concluded the burial was Roman, dating to the second or third century C.E., when the Roman Empire covered the Gallic lands of present-day France and Belgium.

The skeleton's bones are actually much older, with the earliest "contributor" dying nearly 4,445 years ago, per New Scientist. The skeleton contains bones from multiple generations in the late Neolithic period, who lived thousands of years before the Romans conquered Gaul.

Still, the skeleton isn't completely out of place in the Roman cemetery. According to genetic analysis, its skull belongs to a Roman woman of the third or fourth century C.E., whose DNA matches similarly-aged Roman remains in a nearby cemetery -- probably siblings.

How did this composite Neolithic skeleton end up with a Roman skull more than 2,000 years later? As the researchers write, Gallo-Roman groups may have disturbed the old burial while interring their own dead. If it was headless, the Romans might have "completed" it by adding a skull of their own. If not, maybe they replaced the skull. Or maybe they created the entire amalgamated skeleton themselves. [...]

"Whether the assembly of the bones occurred in the late Neolithic or in the Roman period, the presence of the 'individual' was clearly intentional," write the researchers. "The bones were selected, a fitting location chosen and the elements arranged carefully to mimic the correct anatomical order."

Whoever composed the burial understood enough about the human skeletal structure to create a convincing puzzle. As Veselka tells New Scientist, "They knew what they were doing, for sure."

Previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously, previously.