PARIS, May 5 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 today. The sunken pit, in a cave complex along the coast of Kenya, was bereft.
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.
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The remains of a child roughly age 3 who lived about 78,000 years ago and was found in a burial pit at a cave site in Kenya called Panga ya Saidi, the oldest-known human burial in Africa, are seen in an undated virtual reconstruction. Photo by Jorge Gonzalez/Elena Santos /Handout via REUTERS
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It is a scene that exudes sadness: a child perhaps 2-1/2 or 3 years old buried in a shallow grave under the sheltered overhang of a cave, head resting on a pillow and the upper part of the body carefully wrapped in a shroud.
Scientists said on Wednesday they have found the oldest-known human burial in Africa, the continent that gave rise to our species, dating to about 78,000 years ago at a cave site called Panga ya Saidi near the Kenyan coast. They nicknamed the youngster ‘Mtoto,’ meaning ‘child’ in Swahili.
Finding the Child Grave in the Cave Wasn’t a Straightforward Process
A Nature press release states that María Martinón-Torres of CENIEH (National Research Center on Human Evolution), in Burgos, Spain and her colleagues analyzed the remains of the child which came from Panga ya Saidi, a cave site on the Kenyan coast.
General view of the cave site of Panga ya Saidi. Note trench excavation where the earliest human burial in Africa was unearthed.
(Mohammad Javad Shoaee/
)
Archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for the Science of Human History (Jena, Germany) and the National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi) began their excavations at Panga ya Saidi in 2010. Professor Nicole Boivin, principal investigator of that project and director of the Department of Archaeology at the MPI for the Science of Human History, explained how special the site is to the discovery of complex social behaviors in early modern humans. According to a CENIEH press release, Professor B