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Researchers first discovered portions of the child’s bones during excavations in 2013 and spent the next several years digging and casting the fragile bones in plaster.
“At this point, we weren’t sure what we had found. The bones were just too delicate to study in the field,” Emmanuel Ndiema of the National Museums of Kenya said in a release. “We had a find that we were pretty excited about - but it would be a while before we understood its importance.”
The specimen was then transported to a laboratory for detailed analysis. Researchers were later able to study teeth and confirm the remains belonged to a 2 to 3-year-old human, who was later nicknamed “Mtoto,” which means child in Swahili.
By Alison Crowther, Senior Lecture in Archaeology, The University of Queensland Mohammad Javad Shoaee
Africa is often referred to as the cradle of humankind – the birthplace of our species,
Homo sapiens. There is evidence of the development of early symbolic behaviours such as pigment use and perforated shell ornaments in Africa, but so far most of what we know about the development of complex social behaviours such as burial and mourning has come from Eurasia.
However, the remains of a child buried almost 80,000 years ago under an overhang at Panga ya Saidi cave in Kenya is providing important new details.
A coastal cave in Kenya sheltered the body of a tiny child no longer than three, who was arrayed as if still sleeping, in a purposely dug grave for roughly 78,000 years. Unearthed by archeologists, it is the oldest human burial discovered in Africa to date.
Archeological clues tell that the child was loved by those who buried it: Its body was wrapped in a perishable cloth before it was placed in a grave with legs drawn up to the chest, according to a press release. The toddler s head was resting on what was probably a makeshift pillow.
An artist’s interpretation of Mtoto’s burial. Source: Fernando Fueyo