Earliest known human burial in Africa

Abstract

The origin and evolution of hominin mortuary practices are topics of intense interest and debate. Human burials dated to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) are exceedingly rare in Africa and unknown in East Africa. Here, we describe the partial skeleton of a c. 2.5-3.0 year-old child dating to 78.3 ± 4.1 ka, recovered in the MSA layers of Panga ya Saidi (PYS), a cave site in the tropical upland coast of Kenya. Recent excavations revealed a pit feature containing a child in a flexed position. Geochemical, granulometric and micromorphological analyses of the burial pit content and encasing archaeological layers indicate that the feature was deliberatly excavated. Taphonomical evidence such as the strict articulation or good anatomical association of the skeletal elements and histological evidence of putrefaction support the in-place decomposition of a fresh body. Absent to minimal displacement of the 4 unstable joints during decomposition points to an interment in a filled space (grave earth) making the PYS finding the oldest human burial in Africa. The morphological assessment of the partial skeleton is consistent with its assignment to H. sapiens, although the preservation of some primitive features in the dentition supports increasing evidence for non-gradual accretion of modern traits during the emergence of our species. The PYS burial sheds new light on how MSA populations interacted with the dead.Increasing scrutiny is being placed on the interplay between biological and cultural factors in the evolution of our lineage and the emergence of our species in Africa 1-3 .Mortuary practices are a significant component of our evolution and growing evidence supports an ancient origin for complex behaviours surrounding death 4-6 . Formal burials, defined as the interment of a dead body in an excavated grave, may have been preceded by more elusive practices and only performed by the latest representatives of the genus Homo. Testing this scenario is made difficult, particularly in Africa, by the scarcity of sites with clear and well-dated evidence for the treatment of dead bodies.Panga ya Saidi (PYS) has emerged as one of the key Middle Stone Age (MSA) and Later Stone Age (LSA) sites of Africa given its excellent preservation of environmental proxies 7,8 , its distinctive sequence of technological innovations and symbolic traits 8,9 , and its preservation of biomolecular information 10,11 . The excavated cave sequence is ~3 metres deep and encompasses 19 layers (Fig. 1). A series of stratigraphically ordered radiocarbon and luminescence ages, when included in a Bayesian model, indicate human occupation from ~78 ka to 500 years ago 8 , representing most of the last five marine isotope stages.

A spatiotemporally explicit paleoenvironmental framework for the Middle Stone Age of eastern Africa

“…New constellations of tools within MIS 5 toolkits suggest corresponding changes in behaviour previously unseen in the MSA 10 , which perhaps may have been key for these expansions beyond tropical xerophytic shrubland. Together, this suggests that certain MSA toolkits may have led to adaptation, as opposed to adaptations being a pre-requisite for expansion, with transient ecotonal habitats requiring the adoption of a range of survival strategies and potentially mediating interaction between different groups across different environmental contexts 2 , 35 , 36 . Occupations dated to MIS 4 show a climatic range close to that of MIS 3, where we see a push into higher precipitation woodland habitats with a limited change in temperature and altitude.…”

“…Fossil, archaeological, and environmental records, together with the geographic placement of the region, suggest that eastern Africa played a prominent role in the evolution and dispersal of our species, Homo sapiens 1 . The mosaic morphology of recently discovered Mtoto fossils at Panga Ya Saidi demonstrates that eastern Africa sustained great diversity amongst Middle Stone Age (MSA) populations into the Late Pleistocene 2 , supporting a pan-African origin for H. sapiens rather than a single centre of endemism 3 , 4 . Across the continent, the MSA is becoming increasingly associated with the emergence of our species due to the near-simultaneous appearance of cultural innovations diagnostic of the MSA and hominin fossils possessing ‘modern’ features autapomorphic to H. sapiens 5 – 8 .…”

New insights on commemoration of the dead through mortuary and architectural use of pigments at Neolithic Çatalhöyük, Turkey

“…The use of pigments by past societies has been considered as evidence for modern human behaviour based on its association with symbolic activities and rituals [1][2][3][4] . Middle Stone Age sites younger than 180 kya in Africa 3,[5][6][7][8][9] and the Middle East [10][11][12] show systematic evidence of red pigment use.…”

“…The use of pigments by past societies has been considered as evidence for modern human behaviour based on its association with symbolic activities and rituals [1][2][3][4] . Middle Stone Age sites younger than 180 kya in Africa 3,[5][6][7][8][9] and the Middle East [10][11][12] show systematic evidence of red pigment use. In mortuary contexts, pigments became prevalent during the Upper Palaeolithic in Europe [13][14][15][16][17] , but in the Upper Palaeolithic Near-East, the number of recovered burials remains relatively small 18,19 , as is the evidence for ochre processing and ochre use [18][19][20][21] .…”

“…2 Centre for Archaeological Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia. 3 Palermo, Italy . 4 ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.…”