Excavation of ancient tombs in Africa, discovered 78,000 years old relics

Researchers have just discovered that the human skeleton unearthed at the mouth of the Pang ya Saidi cave in Kenya was a child buried 78,000 years ago. This revealed the ways in which Stone Age populations interacted with the dead.

Panoramic cave area Panga ya Saidi, Kenya, where ancient tomb is excavated Despite being home to the earliest indications of modern human behavior, early evidence of African burials is scarce and often ambiguous. Therefore, very little is known about the origin and development of the continental burial practices that gave birth to mankind. Pang ya Saidi has been an important site for the study of human origins since excavations began in 2010 as part of a long-standing collaboration among archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute on the Faculty. Study Human History (Jena, Germany) and National Museum of Kenya (Nairobi). Repeated excavation seasons at Pang ya Saidi now help establish it as a key site on the East African coast, with a special 78,000-year record of cultural, technological and iconic activities. original human. Parts of the child’s bones were first found during the excavation at Pang ya Saidi in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2017 that the feature of the small bone-filled pit was completely revealed. About three meters below the existing cave floor, the shallow, round hole contains bones that have decomposed tightly and are very difficult to decompose, and should be stabilized and plastered at the scene. New findings in the laboratory After being reassigned, the remainder was taken to the National Museum in Nairobi and then to the National Research Center for Human Evolution (CENIEH) laboratories in Burgos, Spain, for further excavation and analysis. Two teeth were exposed during the initial laboratory excavation, leading researchers to suspect that the remains could be human. Subsequent studies at CENIEH confirmed that the teeth belonged to a child between 2.5 and 3 years old, later nicknamed ‘Mtoto’, meaning ‘child’ in Swahili. Through months of intense excavation in CENIEH’s laboratories, spectacular new discoveries have been made. Professor María Martinón-Torres, director of CENIEH, explained: “We started to explore parts of the skull and face, with the intact joint of the lower jaw and some uneven teeth. The articulation of the spine and ribs is also surprisingly preserved, even preserving the curvature of the chest. It showed that it was an intact burial and the decomposition of the body took place in the hole where the bone was found. ” Microscopic analysis of the bones and surrounding soil confirmed that the body was quickly covered after burial and decomposition took place in the pit. In other words, Mtoto was intentionally buried shortly after death. The researchers also suggest that Mtoto’s bent body, found to be reclined to the right with the knees pulled towards the chest, represents a tightly wrapped burial with deliberate preparation. Martinón-Torres noted that this community may have performed some form of honor ceremony. The burial was different among modern humans and Neanderthals The child’s date (Mtoto) is 78,000 years ago and it is the oldest known human burial site in Africa. Later periods from the Stone Age of Africa also included many children, perhaps signaling special treatment of children’s bodies in this ancient period. Human remains have been found on an archaeological level with mid-African Neolithic stone tools, a distinct type of technology believed to be more involved than hominins. Ndiema noted: “The link between this child burial tool and the Stone Age played an important role in proving that Homo sapiens was the exact producer of these particular industries, in contrast to other hominin species ”. Professor Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute in Jena noted: “The burial of Pang ya Saidi shows that the dehumanization of the dead is a cultural practice shared by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. This finding raises questions about the origins and evolution of corpse burial rituals between the two human species is closely related and the extent of this behavior is far from that of people today.