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A small grave containing the skeleton of a child is the earliest ever discovery of an intentional burial of
Homo sapiens in Africa. The 3-year-old child, who has been named “Mtoto” (meaning “child” in Swahili), was intentionally buried inside of the Panga ya Saidi cave which is located to the north of Mombasa, Kenya, approximately 78,000 years ago.
The child was carefully placed on their side in a curled up position (similar to a sleeping position) with the head resting on what was believed to have been a type of pillow. Maria Martinón-Torres, who is a paleoanthropologist, the director of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIAH) in Burgos, Spain, and who led the team that discovered the burial, described the way in which the child was buried, “Only humans treat the dead with this respect, this care, this tenderness,” adding, “This is some of the earliest evidence that we have in Africa about humans living in the physical and also in the symbolic
The East African
Saturday May 08 2021
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A comprehensive review of misappropriated Kenyan objects of art is on display at the Invisible Inventories exhibition in the Nairobi National Museum. The exhibition comes after a two-year collaborative study of the International Inventories Programme (IIP) to investigate a body of cultural items held in institutions across the globe.
The IIP is a partnership of the National Museums of Kenya, Goethe-Institut, the Nest (Nairobi), the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne and the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt.
Walking through the exhibition, I immediately noticed several empty stands, a visual testament to the missing items. The lost works include ceremonial instruments, shields, smoking pipes, jewellery, carvings and more. Though housed abroad, not all the missing items are not all viewable. At the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne, 82 out of 83 Kenyan pieces have not been publicly displayed.
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Oldest Human Burial Yet Discovered: 78,000 Year Old Grave Holds Child
A new study, appearing in Nature on May 5, reports the oldest known modern human burial in Africa. The 2.5 to 3 year old child was buried in a stooped position in a shallow grave directly under the protective rock overhang at the entrance to the cave. The burial in Panga ya Saidi joins the growing number of references to early complex social behavior Homo sapiens .
The Pangy ya Saidi cave on the coast of Kenya. The 78,000-year-old burial of a child was discovered in the pit in the foreground, secured by planks.