In 2020, archaeologists in Ireland first announced a startling find at Newgrange, a giant Neolithic burial chamber 30 miles north of Dublin. Experts offered a headline-grabbing theory: Neolithic Ireland was ruled by incestuous royal dynasties, or potentially even “god-kings” similar to those documented in ancient Egyptian and Incan empires. “People were definitely being selected for burial in passage tombs—the whole community does not end up in these monuments,” Smyth explained in a statement. Instead, they say the genetic clustering found amid bones in specific passage tombs more typically reflects distant biological relations such as second cousins and even great-great-great-grand parents. [But] we do not see this evidence in Irish passage tombs.”What’s more, a deceased person’s remains were treated differently during Neolithic Ireland than they are today.