According to the Discovery Channel's website, analysis of a remarkable cluster of graves at a Stone Age burial site near Eulau, Germany, provides the oldest molecular genetic evidence for a nuclear family.

The graves discovered in 2005, dating to 4,600 years ago, contained groups of adults and children buried facing each other – hands interlinked in many cases. The family members, ranging in age from very young children to adults 30 years and older, were interned simultaneously.

The excavation revealed four separate graves containing 13 bodies—5 adults and 8 children. Within the group, DNA analysis confirmed a family of four, with the two children between 4 to 5 and 8 to 9 years old, respectively. 

These figures illustrate the careful arrangement of the bodies of a Late Stone Age family grave. While the association of a close familial relationship becomes immediately apparent at the first sight, the multiple burials of grave 99 from Eulau, Germany has proven to be the oldest successful case of biological kinship testing in prehistory.

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