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A child’s grave is the earliest known burial site in Africa

The discovery of the burial of a young child in a cave in Kenya around 78,000 years ago sheds new light on the role of symbolism in the treatment of the dead during the Middle Stone Age.
  1. Louise Humphrey

    1. Louise Humphrey is at the Centre for Human Evolution Research, Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London SW7 5BD, UK.

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Much of the current debate surrounding the location and timing of the emergence of modern human behaviour focuses on Africa during the Middle Stone Age (MSA), which lasted from about 320,000 to 30,000 years ago. The first known appearances of a suite of modern human innovations relating to technology, social organization, symbolism and exploitation of the landscape and resources occurred in Africa during this period1. This time frame is also associated with the earliest known hominin fossils placed in the modern human lineage2,3. The emergence of more-complex behaviours surrounding the treatment of the dead is often framed in the broader context of an increase in symbolic capabilities4. Writing in Nature, Martinón-Torres et al.5 present a convincing case for the intentional burial of a young child in eastern Africa, at Panga ya Saidi, a cave in Kenya (Fig. 1). The authors’ meticulous recording of this archaeological evidence has revealed the earliest known human burial in Africa.

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Nature 593, 39-40 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00805-6

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