Oldest Human Burial in Africa Changes Commonly Known Facts About 78,000-Year-Old Funeral Practices

Scientists revealed evidence of the earliest human burial in Africa that changes what's commonly known about social behaviors among inHoo sapiens, a new study specified.

A USA TODAY report said that the discovery provides an understanding into how people from 78,000 years back treated their dead loved ones.

The study entitled "Earliest known human burial in Africa," and published in the Nature journal, said, a child, about three years of age, appeared to have been carefully arranged in an intentionally dug pit then covered by deposit scooped up from the floor of a cave.

This new research found the surviving bone fragments' arrangements specified that the body was positioned on its side with legs drawn up to its chest.

These traits, along with evidence that the body was quickly covered and decomposed, indicated that the burial was deliberate.

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Ancient Funeral Practice

According to the study's co-author Maria Martinon-Torres, who's also director at the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, said they could infer their discovery a child that was really put there in a particular position with a pillow beneath his head.

The co-author added that such respect, care and tenderness, putting a child lying in a nearly sleeping position, she thinks it is one of the most important, the oldest evidence in Africa, of humans who lived in "physical and symbolic world."

The site of the funeral, a similar cΙnet report said, is in modern-day Panga ya Saidi, in Kenya, North of Mombasa. Even though there are no indications of offerings or ochre, both typical at more recent funeral areas, the treatment gave the child suggested a multifaceted ritual that perhaps needed the participation of a lot of members from the community the child belonged to.

Furthermore, the finding also suggested that the mortuary behaviors of ancient people in Africa differed from those of Neanderthals, as well as the early humans in Eurasia, who typically buried their dead in residential areas.

Unusual 78,000-Year-Old Record of Ancient Human Activities

The project's principal investigator, Nicole Boivin, who's also the director of the department of archeology at the Max Planck Institute for Science of Human History in Germany said, as soon as they first visited Panga ya Saidi, they already knew it was special. Specifically, she said the site was certainly one of a kind.

Recurring seasons of excavations at Panga ya Saidi have now contributed to its establishment as a key type site for the East African coast that has an unusual 78,000-year record of early cultural, symbolic and technological activities of humans.

On top of providing understandings into human evolution in Africa, this research puts emphasis on regional diversity in the human species.

Also according to Boivin, it is incredibly unusual that access is gained to such a snapshot of a single moment in time, particularly one that is quite ancient.

The funeral is taking humans back to quite a sad moment in life. One that, in spite of the long period of time of separation, can be understood as humans.

Related information about ancient burial rites is shown on Alpha Paw's YouTube video below: