Archaeologists uncover oldest human burial in Africa: A glimpse of human grief, at the loss of a child 78,000 years ago, has been revealed in the discovery of the oldest burial site in #Africa. The Middle Stone Age grave - of a three-year-old child - was found in a cave in #Kenya. In a paper in the journal Nature, the #researchers who studied the fragile, #ancient remains described how its head appeared to have been laid on a pillow. #Scientists have named the #child Mtoto, meaning "the kid" in #Swahili. The international team of #archaeologists carefully cast the entire #grave in plaster in order to preserve the arrangement of surviving bone fragments. This enabled them to transport the body safely to a #laboratory for detailed #study. "It was like excavating a shadow," said Prof María Martinón-Torres, director of Spain's National Research Center on Human Evolution. "[When we moved the cast], we didn't know we were carrying a child in our arms," she said. The researchers were able to study the teeth to confirm that this was the tiny body of a human child - between two and three years old. Scans revealed that the body had been laid in a fetal position. https://lnkd.in/eUh3gig #AfricanHistory #ThisIsAfrica #History #HumanStudies #research #france #paris #newyork #new #newcollection #newborn #beautifulnature #loveyou #lovequotes (at Africa) https://www.instagram.com/p/COlJz79tBJi/?igshid=17cz45x18nh9
