Oldest human burial in Africa unearthed
Discovery sheds light on the evolution of modern human behaviour.
An artist’s interpretation of Mtoto’s burial. Credit: Fernando Fueyo
About 78,000 years ago, at the mouth of a yawning cave complex in today’s south-eastern Kenya, someone placed the body of a three-year-old child on its side in a purpose-dug grave and covered it with earth from the cave floor.
Whatever else was said or done in those moments is lost in time, but this intentional act – described today in a paper in the journal
Nature – is the oldest human burial ever uncovered in Africa and offers scientists a window into ancient burial practice.
The oldest human burial in Africa was a toddler laid to rest with a pillow
elisfkc2 / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
A toddler laid to rest with their head on a pillow in a cave in eastern Kenya is thought to be the oldest human burial ever found in Africa.
The remains of the child, who was between 2 ½ and 3 years old, date back 78,000 years and were found buried at the mouth of the Panga ya Saidi cave, according to new research published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Analysis of the cave sediment and the bones suggested that the burial was intentional and perhaps involved the child’s wider community in funeral rites, the authors of the study said, demonstrating that humans at that time were capable of symbolic thought and complex social behavior.
By WILL DUNHAM Reuters
Published May 6, 2021 2:26am
The burial of a young child dubbed Mtoto around 78,000 years ago at a cave site in Kenya, the oldest-known human burial on the continent where our species Homo sapiens originated is seen in an undated artist s interpretation. Fernando Fueyo/Handout via REUTERS 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. The cave site of Panga ya Saidi, in Kenya s Kilifi County is seen in this undated photograph. The remains of a child, roughly aged 3 who lived about 78,000 years ago, were found in a burial pit at the mouth of the cave, the oldest-known human burial in Africa. Mohammad Javad Shoaee/Handout via REUTERS
The oldest known burial in Africa is of a 3-year-old child who died around 78,000 years ago, shedding light on how people in the region cared for their dead at that time
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.
Working with a team of researchers from Kenya, Germany, Spain, France, Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States, we studied the burial. Our results, published in Nature today, reveal valuable insights into human cultural evolution, including how Middle Stone Age populations interacted with the dead.