By Josh Davis
First published 5 May 2021
The discovery of the burial of a small child in a cave in Kenya is providing new insights into the development of funerary practices of modern humans.
Dating to roughly 78,000 years old, the grave is the oldest human burial discovered in Africa to date.
When and where modern humans first started displaying behaviours that we see as central to our own sense of identity has been long debated.
A lot of these aspects, such as language and belief systems, leave little to no archaeological evidence. But the treatment of the dead does leave some tantalising clues as to the behaviours of our early ancestors.
While anatomically modern humans originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago, the excavation of a child’s remains buried at the mouth of a cave on the coast of Kenya 78,000 years ago is teaching scientists how Middle Stone Age populations interacted with their dead.
Ideal reconstruction of Mtoto’s original position at the moment of its discovery at the site. (Photo credit: Martinón-Torres, et al., 2021)
(CN) Archeologists have discovered the oldest human burial in Africa, revealing important information about the origin and development of mortuary practices on the continent where our species originated.
While anatomically modern humans originated in Africa around 200,000 years ago, the excavation of a child’s remains buried at the mouth of the Panga ya Saidi cave site in the tropical upland coast of Kenya 78,000 years ago has a story to tell about how people in the Middle Stone Age interacted with their dead.
Scientists have uncovered “extraordinary” evidence of what is thought to be the oldest deliberate human burial in Africa, dating to 78,000 years ago.
The remains of a three-year-old child were unearthed at Panga ya Saidi – a cave on the Kenyan coast, with “astonishingly preserved” bone arrangements.
The researchers said their findings, published in the journal Nature, are the earliest known evidence of a ceremonial act of burial by modern humans in Africa and offer new insight into how our ancestors treated their dead.
Professor Nicole Boivin, director of the department of archaeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, said: “As soon as we first visited Panga ya Saidi, we knew that it was special.
Three-year-old Mtoto, Africa s earliest known human burial
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Three-year-old Mtoto, Africa s earliest known human burial
AFP / May 5, 2021, 20:53 IST
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Picture source: Twitter/@HumanOrigins
PARIS: A child no older than three laid to rest sideways in an earthen grave 78,000 years ago, legs carefully tucked up against its tiny chest, is the earliest known human burial in Africa, researchers reported Wednesday.
The sunken pit, in a cave complex along the coast of Kenya, was bereft of ornaments, offerings or ochre-coloured clay carvings found in the region s more recent Stone Age graves, they detailed in the journal Nature.
But Mtoto Swahili for child had been wrapped in a shroud with her or his head resting on what was probably a pillow, indicating that the community may have undertaken some form of funerary rite , said lead author Maria Martinon-Torres, director of the National Research Centre on Human Evolution, in Burgos, Spain