[ExI] A Cave Site in Kenya’s Forests Reveals the Oldest Human Burial in Africa

[John Grigg]

"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 behaviors such as pigment use and perforated shell ornaments in
Africa, but so far most of what we know about the development of complex
social behaviors 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* earlier this month
<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03457-8>, reveal valuable
insights into human cultural evolution, including how Middle Stone Age
populations interacted with the dead.
A Child Called ‘Mtoto’

Around 78,000 years ago, a small child was carefully placed on their right
side in a shallow pit in a cave near Kenya’s coast. Their legs were raised
to their chest in a flexed position, and their body wrapped in a special
cloth, perhaps an animal skin.

The child’s head was placed gently on some kind of perishable support, a
pillow in readiness for the long sleep. As a final act, the child was
deliberately covered over with dirt from the cave floor and left for
thousands of years, slowly becoming buried under another three meters of
soil.

Our team later nicknamed this person “Mtoto,” meaning “child” in Kenya’s
Swahili language."
https://singularityhub.com/2021/05/28/a-cave-site-in-kenyas-forests-reveals-the-oldest-human-burial-in-africa
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