Category Archives: AFRICA

AFRICA, SUDAN, WORLD

Medieval Church Excavated in Sudan’s Northern State

Medieval Church Excavated in Sudan’s Northern State

Science in Poland reports that researchers led by Artur Obłuski of the University of Warsaw have found the remains of a large medieval church in the centre of Old Dongola, Northern State, Sudan.

According to, Assist. Prof. Artur Obłuski, the head of the Dongola expedition and the director of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw (PCMA UW), this discovery changes not only our knowledge about the city itself but also the way we reconstruct the history of the Nubian church.

Dongola was the capital of Makuria, one of the three Christian Nubian kingdoms. Archaeologists from PCMA UW have been working there since 1964, continuing the research initiated by Prof. K. Michałowski after the success of his work in another Nubian centre – Faras, the capital of Nobadia.

Since 2018, work in Dongola has been carried out under the European Research Council (ERC) grant “UMMA – Urban Metamorphosis of the community of a Medieval African capital city”, headed by Assist. Prof. Obłuski.

In 2021, archaeologists cleaned the wall of the church’s apse, together with an adjacent wall and the nearby dome of a large tomb. The structures are located in the very centre of the city.

The walls of the apse, which was the most sacred place in the church, are decorated with paintings depicting two rows of monumental figures. It is the largest apse so far discovered in Nubia: it has a diameter of 6 m, and the width of the church to which it belonged is approx. 26 m.

“If our estimates based on the known dimensions are confirmed, it is the largest church discovered so far in Nubia,” – says Obłuski, adding – “Its size is important, but so is the location of the building – in the heart of the 200-hectare city, the capital of the combined kingdoms of Nobadia and Makuria. Just to the east of the apse, a large domed building was added.

We have a great analogy for such an architectural complex: Faras. There too, the cathedral stood in the centre of the citadel, and to the east of it was the domed tomb of Joannes, the bishop of Faras. However, there is a major difference in the scale of the buildings. The dome over Joannes’ tomb is 1.5 m in diameter, while the dome over the Dongolese building is 7.5 m.”

Archaeologists assume that, just like in Faras, the large church in Dongola served as a cathedral, next to which a tomb of dignitaries, probably bishops, was erected. The confirmation of this hypothesis will have significant consequences for Nubiology.

Until now, another church located outside the citadel was considered to be Dongola’s cathedral, a building whose features would influence the religious architecture of Nubia over the centuries. “If we are right, it was a completely different building that set the trends,” – says Obłuski.

The newly discovered building stands in the middle of the citadel that is surrounded by a wall about 10 m high and 5 m thick.

The excavations have shown that this was the heart of the entire kingdom in the Makurian period as all structures uncovered there were of a monumental character: churches, a palace, and large villas belonging to a church and state elites. Test trenches dug in the building have yielded promising results.

“The sounding in the apse is approx. 9 m deep. This means that the eastern part of the building is preserved to the impressive height of a modern three-storey block of flats. And this means there may be more paintings and inscriptions under our feet, just like in Faras,” – says the archaeologist.

Therefore, among the team members are conservators from the Department of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, working under the supervision of Prof. Krzysztof Chmielewski. Their immediate task is to secure the discovered paintings on an ongoing basis, and in the long term, to prepare them for display. Unlike at Faras, they can be left on the church walls.

“In order to continue the excavations, the weakened and peeling wall plaster covered with painting decoration must be strengthened, and then carefully cleaned of layers of earth, dirt and salt deposits that are particularly harmful to the wall paintings.

See Also: MORE ARCHAEOLOGY NEWS

When a suitable roof is erected over this valuable find, it will be possible to start the final aesthetic conservation of the paintings,” – explains Prof. Chmielewski, adding that this type of rescue conservation requires the involvement of considerable resources, time, and skilled specialists.

The next excavation seasons in Dongola are planned for the fall of this year and the winter of 2022.

AFRICA, WORLD

Earliest known war driven by climate change, researchers say

Earliest known war driven by climate change, researchers say

Researchers discovered 61 bones in the Nile Valley region in the 1960s, the earliest evidence of human conflict. The deaths were first attributed to a single armed battle. However, a recent reexamination of the 13,000-year-old bones revealed that individuals died over a period of years as a result of recurrent violence that was exacerbated because of climatic changes during the period.

Earliest known war driven by climate change, researchers say
Two of the individuals found buried at Jebel Sahaba in the Nile Valley in the 1960s are shown. Pencils mark the position of associated stone artifacts. Image courtesy of the Wendorf Archives of the British Museum.

Published in Scientific Reports, the findings build on previous research around remains discovered in Jebel Sahaba, a prehistoric cemetery that dates to between 13,400 and 18,600 years ago, marking the oldest recorded evidence of interpersonal violence among human groups.

The study reframes the conflict between hunter-gatherers in the context of climate change and offers a unique lens into the emergence of violence and mass death in the stone age.

A closer examination of the skeletons — of adults, teens, and children — revealed previously undocumented healed and unhealed injuries sustained from brutal and continued violence. “That injury pattern more likely arose from periodic, indiscriminate raids rather than a single battle, in which the dead would have consisted mainly of male fighters,” the researchers say.

This suggests violence was a material part of life and resulted from multiple raids and ambushes — or “minor battles” — during that time because of resource competition, researchers from the U.K. and France say.

And more importantly, “repeated violent episodes [around that time] were probably triggered by well-recorded environmental changes,” paleoanthropologist Isabelle Crevecoeur, who conducted the study with her colleagues, told ScienceNews.

Isabelle Crevecoeur (right) and Marie‑Hélène Dias‑Meirinho (left) study the Jebel Sahaba human remains in the Egypt and Sudan department of the British Museum.

Since this was a pre-agriculture period, rival groups living in the same space competed for meals and other resources, which might have triggered fighting among regional groups.

“The new report fits a scenario in which ancient, possibly culturally distinct communities violently raided each other when dwindling resources threatened their survival,” said bioarchaeologist Christopher Stojanowski of Arizona State University in Tempe, who did not participate in the new study but has studied the Jebel Sahaba remains.

The Nile Valley, the area between now southern Egypt and northern Sudan, was believed to be a space of refuge for prehistoric people, who might have moved there from the arid, less fertile areas in Africa and southwest Asia. Moreover, the expanse of plains also meant an easier search for animals to hunt and fish.

This time coincided with a fluctuating climate — between 11,000 and 20,000 years ago, the Ice Age showed signs of slowing down, resulting in widespread flooding and disrupting the ecological balance; Crevecoeur mentions there was proof of very extreme flooding of the Nile, which resulted in reduced fishing and hunting spots and depleted habitats.

The origins of warfare have been a matter of dispute for a long: whether violence originated among Stone Age hunter-gatherers or among state societies within roughly the past 6,000 years. The new findings thus alter the history of violence in the stone age.

“These results enrich our understanding of the contexts in which violence emerges among foragers,” Luke Glowacki, at the Department of Human Biology at Harvard University, told NewScientist. “They provide additional evidence for an emerging consensus that foragers, just like agricultural peoples, had interpersonal violence in the form of raids and ambushes.”

The researchers note, however, that the cause for the violence cannot be determined with absolute certainty, since there are no written documents.

But the consensus was drawn based on the fact that this earliest recorded violence was sporadic, long-drawn, and took place against the backdrop of climate change depleting resources needed for survival.

Records of hunter-gatherers from the stone age not only offer an insight into warfare, but also show how climate change — that manifests as resource scarcity, flooding, and loss of habitat — triggers conflict and displacement. “These changes were not gradual at all,” Isabelle Crevecoeur says. “They had to survive these changes that were brutal.”

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

FBI cracks the case of the 4,000-year-old mummy’s head

FBI cracks the case of the 4,000-year-old mummy’s head

A team of forensic scientists has managed to extract DNA from a 4,000-year-old mummy, and their finding has solved a century-old mystery of its ransacked tomb.

If the F.B.I.’s scientists could extract DNA from the 4,000-year-old mummy, they would add a powerful tool to their forensics arsenal and also unlock a new way of deciphering Egypt’s ancient past

The Egyptian mummy wasn’t a fully preserved corpse, but rather a decapitated, mutilated, bandage-wrapped head that archaeologists found on top of a coffin when they excavated a tomb back in 1915. And that was the source of the mystery.

As the researchers explained in a paper published March 1 in the journal Genes, the tomb belonged to an Egyptian Middle Kingdom governor named Djehutynakht.

But by the time modern scientists found the tomb, it had been ransacked; it was robbed in ancient times. In an article describing the discovery, The New York Times reported that the robbers had set the place on fire “to cover their tracks.” 

All that remained of the tomb’s occupants was a dismembered torso in one corner of the tomb and a head placed on top of Djehutynakht’s coffin. For more than a hundred years, researchers have wondered and disagreed about whether these mummified remains belonged to Djehutynakht himself or to his wife.

Deepening the mystery, the head had been altered during the mummification process, with several bones removed from the jaw and cheek in an effort to enable the deceased to eat and drink in the afterlife, the Times reported. Those bones might have offered clues as to whether the body was male or female.

That left DNA analysis. But extracting DNA from ancient Egyptian mummies, after centuries in hot, DNA-degrading environments, had never been achieved before. The Times reported that earlier attempts failed or produced contaminated results.

Still, FBI forensic researchers gave it a shot. They had access because the head, along with many artefacts from the tomb, had long since made its way to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. (Shipping artefacts out of Egypt would be illegal today under Egyptian law.) They drilled into a molar extracted from the head “in pristine condition” back in 2009, producing 105 milligrams (0.004 ounces) of tooth dust.

After exposing the dust to a liquid mixture designed to copy and amplify existing DNA, they found that it came from a biological male. The head, in other words, most likely belonged to Djehutynakht and not his wife.

A team at the Department of Homeland Security, working with a smaller tooth-dust sample, later confirmed the results. In both cases, the DNA was damaged, demonstrating that it came from the ancient mummy and not modern contamination.

Interestingly, it remains unclear which Djehutynakht the head (and tomb) belonged to. Two governors with that name ruled an area call Hare Nome, and, the researchers wrote, “while they shared the same name (which means Thoth [the main local deity] is Strong), there is no evidence they were related.”

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?

The pyramids of Egypt are a marvel of archaeology, soaring high above the desert sands and visible for miles. Who were the people who managed to construct these pyramids, which was obviously a monumental task?

Who built the Egyptian pyramids?
A Bedouin man on a camel by the Pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure at the Giza Necropolis in Egypt.

Many hypotheses exist concerning who constructed Egypt’s pyramids, including massive groups of enslaved Jewish and wilder ideas, such as inhabitants of the ‘lost city of Atlantis or even aliens.

None of these theories, however, have evidence to back them up.

The pyramids could not have been constructed by Jewish slaves, as no archaeological remains that can be directly linked to the Jewish people have been found in Egypt that date back to 4,500 years ago, when the Giza pyramids were built, archaeological research has revealed.

Additionally, the story told in the Hebrew Bible about Jews being slaves in Egypt refers to a city named “Ramesses.” A city named pi-Ramesses was founded during the 19th dynasty (about 1295-1186 B.C.) and was named after Ramesses II, who ruled 1279–1213 BC. This city was constructed after the era of pyramid construction had ended in Egypt.

“We have no clue, not even a single word, about early Israelites in Egypt: neither in monumental inscriptions on walls of temples, nor in tomb inscriptions, nor in papyri,” wrote archaeologists Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in their book “The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of its Sacred Texts” (The Free Press, 2001). 

What’s more, no archaeological evidence has ever been found for the lost city of Atlantis in any time period, and many scholars believe that the story is fictional. As for aliens, well, that idea is out of this world. 

In fact, all the evidence shows that the ancient Egyptians built the pyramids, Egyptologists say. But how the pyramid builders lived, how they were compensated and how they were treated is a mystery that researchers are still investigating. 

The pyramids and their builders

Egypt has more than 100 ancient pyramids, but it’s most famous include the first step pyramid, built during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser (about 2630-2611 B.C.), and the first true pyramid — one that has smooth sides — built under the rule of pharaoh Snefru (about 2575-2551 B.C.), Mark Lehner wrote in his book, “The Complete Pyramids: Solving the Ancient Mysteries” (Thames & Hudson, 2008). The Great Pyramid was constructed at Giza during the reign of pharaoh Khufu (about 2551-2528 B.C.), and two of his successors, Khafre (about 2520-2494 B.C.) and Menkaure (about 2490-2472 B.C.), also had pyramids built at Giza. 

Pharaohs gradually stopped building pyramids during the New Kingdom (1550-1070 B.C.), choosing instead to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, which is located about 300 miles (483 km) south of Giza, Lehner noted in his book. Over the past few decades, archaeologists have found new pieces of evidence that provide clues as to who the pyramid builders were and how they lived. 

The step pyramid, built during the reign of the pharaoh Djoser, at the necropolis of Saqqara, Egypt.

Surviving written records, including papyri discovered in 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, indicate that large groups of workers — sometimes translated as “gangs” — helped bring material to Giza. The papyri found at Wadi al-Jarf tell of a group of 200 men headed by an inspector named Merer. The group of workers transported limestone by boat along the Nile River a distance of about 11 miles (18 kilometres) from Tura to the Great Pyramid, where the stone was used to build the outer casing of the monument. 

In the past, Egyptologists had theorized that the pyramid builders were largely made up of seasonal agricultural workers who had reached a point in the year in which there was little agricultural work to be done. However, it remains to be seen whether this is actually true.

The papyri detailing the pyramid’s histories are still in the process of being deciphered and analyzed, but the results indicate that the gang led by Merer did far more than help with pyramid construction. These workers appear to have travelled over much of Egypt, possibly as far as the Sinai Desert, carrying out various construction projects and tasks that had been assigned to them. This raises the question of whether they were part of a more permanent professional force rather than a group of seasonal agricultural workers who would return to their fields. 

According to the papyri, the workers were given a diet that included dates, vegetables, poultry and meat, said Pierre Tallet, an Egyptology professor at Paris-Sorbonne University who is deciphering the papyri and is co-leader of the team that found them. In addition to the healthy diet, the papyri describe members of the work team regularly getting textiles that were “probably considered as a kind of money at that time,” Tallet told Live Science. 

Additionally, officials in high-ranking positions who were involved in pyramid construction “might have received grants of land,” said Mark Lehner, director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates (AERA), a research institute based in Massachusetts. Historical records show that at times in Egypt’s history, land grants were given out to officials. However, it’s unknown whether land grants were also given to officials involved with pyramid construction. 

Lehner’s team has been excavating a town at Giza that was lived in and frequented by some of the workers who were constructing the pyramid of Menkaure. So far, the archaeologists have found evidence that this town’s ancient inhabitants used to bake large amounts of bread, slaughter thousands of animals and brew copious amounts of beer. Based on the animal bones found at the site, and considering the nutritional needs of the workers, archaeologists estimate that about 4,000 lbs. (1,800 kilograms) of animals — including cattle, sheep and goats — were slaughtered every day, on average, to feed the workers. 

The remains of workers buried in graves near the pyramids show that the workers had healed bones that were set properly — suggesting that they had access to the medical care that was available at the time. The rich diet of the pyramid builders, combined with the evidence for medical care and receiving textiles as a form of payment, has led Egyptologists to generally agree that the workers were not enslaved people. 

But this doesn’t mean all of the workers got equal accommodations. AERA’s excavations show that some of the higher-ranking officials lived in large houses and had the choicest cuts of meat. In contrast, Lehner suspects that the lower-ranking workers likely slept in simple dwellings or “lean-tos” at the pyramids themselves. 

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

The Legendary Emerald Tablet And Its Secrets of The Universe

The Legendary Emerald Tablet And Its Secrets of The Universe

The origins of Western alchemy can be traced back to Hellenistic Egypt, in particular to the city of Alexandria. One of the most important characters in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the Thrice-Great).

The name of this figure is derived from the Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth, and his Greek counterpart, Hermes. The Hermetica, which is said to be written by Hermes Trismegistus, is generally regarded as the basis of Western alchemical philosophy and practice. In addition, Hermes Trismegistus is also believed to be the author of the Emerald Tablet.

Legends of the Emerald Tablet

The Emerald Tablet is said to be a tablet of emerald or green stone inscribed with the secrets of the universe. The source of the original Emerald Tablet is unclear; hence it is surrounded by legends. The most common story claims that the tablet was found in a caved tomb under the statue of Hermes in Tyana, clutched in the hands of the corpse of Hermes Trismegistus himself.

Hermes Trismegistus.

And the creator of the Emerald Tablet has been provided in myth as the Egyptian god Thoth, who Armando Mei writes “divided his knowledge into 42 plates of emerald, codifying the great scientific principles ruling the Universe.

The legend tells that after the gods’ fall, the Hermetic tablets were cleverly hidden so that no human being might find them. Only Thoth, on his return to that dimension, was able to recover the mysterious book.”

Thoth, (Greek), Egyptian Djhuty, in Egyptian religion, a god of the moon, of reckoning, of learning, and of writing. He was held to be the inventor of writing, the creator of languages, the scribe, interpreter, and adviser of the gods, and the representative of the sun god, Ra.

Another legend suggests that it was the third son of Adam and Eve, Seth, who originally wrote it. Others believed that the tablet was once held within the Ark of the Covenant. Some even claim that the original source of the Emerald Tablet is none other than the fabled city of Atlantis.

Spreading Stories of the Emerald Tablet

While various claims have been made regarding the origins of the Emerald Tablet, as yet no verifiable evidence has been found to support them. The oldest documentable source of the Emerald Tablet’s text is the Kitab sirr al-haliqi (Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature), which was itself a composite of earlier works.

This was an Arabic work written in the 8th century AD and attributed to ‘Balinas’ or Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana. It is Balinas who provides us with the story of how he discovered the Emerald Tablet in the caved tomb. Based on this Arabic work, some believe that the Emerald Tablet was also an Arabic text and written between the 6th and 8th centuries AD, rather than a piece of work from Antiquity, as many have claimed.

While Balinas claimed that the Emerald Tablet was written originally in Greek, the original document that he purportedly possessed no longer exists, if indeed it existed at all. Some say the text burned up in the Library of Alexandria. Nevertheless, Balinas’ version of the text itself quickly became well-known and has been translated by various people over the centuries.

For instance, an early version of the Emerald Tablet also appeared in a work called the Kitab Ustuqus al-Uss al-Thani (Second Book of the Elements of the Foundation), which is attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan. It would, however, take several more centuries before the text was accessible to Europeans. In the 12th century AD, the Emerald Tablet was translated into Latin by Hugo von Santalla.

A reconstruction of what the Emerald Tablet is believed to have looked like.

What’s written on the Emerald Tablet?

The Emerald Tablet would become one of the pillars of Western alchemy. It was a highly influential text in medieval and Renaissance alchemy, and probably still is today. In addition to translations of the Emerald Tablet, numerous commentaries have also been written regarding its contents.

For instance, a translation by Isaac Newton was discovered among his alchemical papers. This translation is currently being held in King’s College Library in Cambridge University. Other notable researchers of the Emerald Tablet include Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, John Dee, and Aleister Crowley. And today knowledge of the legendary Emerald Tablet (at least one interpretation of it) is reaching new audiences with its presence in the surreal German-language series Dark.

An imaginative 17th century depiction of the Emerald Tablet from the work of Heinrich Khunrath, 1606.

The interpretation of the Emerald Text is not a straightforward matter, as it is after all a piece of esoteric text. One interpretation, for instance, suggests that the text describes seven stages of alchemical transformation – calcination, dissolution, separation, conjunction, fermentation, distillation and coagulation.

Yet, despite the various interpretations available, it seems that none of their authors claims to possess knowledge of the whole truth. Furthermore, readers are encouraged to read the text and try to interpret and find the hidden truths themselves.

AFRICA, WORLD

‘Extinct Fossil Fish’ Dating Back 420 Million Years Found Alive in Madagascar

‘Extinct Fossil Fish’ Dating Back 420 Million Years Found Alive in Madagascar

Shark hunters have found a 420m year-old ‘extinct’ four-legged fossil fish alive in ocean

Shark hunters have rediscovered a population of fish that predates dinosaurs that many believed to be extinct. The “four-legged fossil fish” known as the coelacanth, has been found alive and well in the West Indian Ocean off the coast of Madagascar, according to Mongabay News.

Their re-emergence is partly because of fishermen using gillnets in their shark-hunting expeditions.

As they continue to target sharks for their fins and oil these deep-sea nets can reach where the fish gathers, around 328 to 492 feet below the water’s surface.

The species, which dates back 420 million years, was thought to have been extinct until 1938.

But the conservation news site said scientists were shocked to find a member of the “Latimeria chalumnae” species still alive, with its eight fins, a specific spotting pattern on the scales and huge bodies.

A recent study in the SA Journal of Science indicated that the coelacanths might face a new threat to survival with the uptick in shark hunting, which began booming in the 1980s.

Researchers wrote in the paper: “The jarifa gillnets used to catch sharks are a relatively new and more deadly innovation as they are large and can be set in deep water,” the researchers noted in their paper.

“They fear that the coelacanths are now at risk for ‘exploitation’, particularly in Madagascar.

“There is little doubt that large mesh jarifa gillnets is now the biggest threat to the survival of coelacanths in Madagascar.”

The lead author of the study Andrew Cooke told Mongabay News he and the others were shocked at the increase of accidental captures of the creature.

Newsweek reported he said: “When we looked into this further, we were astounded [by the numbers caught]…even though there has been no proactive process in Madagascar to monitor or conserve coelacanths,”

Coelacanths or Latimeria are carnivorous fish that live up to 60 years and grow as large as 6.5 feet and weigh approximately 198 pounds.

Their study suggests that Madagascar is the “epicentre” of various coelacanth species and says vital conservation steps are taken to preserve the ancient species.

But Madagascan government marine researcher Paubert Tsimanaoraty Mahatante told the site he is not concerned with the species becoming a hot commodity among hunters.

He reportedly said: “Catching a coelacanth is totally uncommon and people are in some ways even afraid to catch something so uncommon. So I don’t think that coelacanths are being targeted deliberately,”

But Cooke and his team want to continue educating people about the unique species based on around 40 years of research.

The paper in the SA Journal of Science provides is first comprehensive account of Madagascar coelacanths and shows the existence of a regionally important population.

AFRICA, EUROPE, WORLD

Pre-Human Fossils Suggest Mankind Emerged From Europe Rather Than Africa

Pre-Human Fossils Suggest Mankind Emerged From Europe Rather Than Africa

The common lineage of great apes and humans split several hundred thousand earlier than hitherto assumed, according to an international research team headed by Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

The researchers investigated two fossils of Graecopithecus freybergi with state-of-the-art methods and came to the conclusion that they belong to pre-humans. Their findings, published today in two papers in the journal PLOS ONE, further indicate that the split of the human lineage occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and not — as customarily assumed — in Africa.

Present-day chimpanzees are humans’ nearest living relatives. Where the last chimp-human common ancestor lived is a central and highly debated issue in palaeoanthropology. Researchers have assumed up to now that the lineages diverged five to seven million years ago and that the first pre-humans developed in Africa.

According to the 1994 theory of French palaeoanthropologist Yves Coppens, climate change in Eastern Africa could have played a crucial role. The two studies of the research team from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, France and Australia now outline a new scenario for the beginning of human history.

Dental roots give new evidence

The team analyzed the two known specimens of the fossil hominid Graecopithecus freybergi: a lower jaw from Greece and an upper premolar from Bulgaria. Using computer tomography, they visualized the internal structures of the fossils and demonstrated that the roots of premolars are widely fused.

Pre-Human Fossils Suggest Mankind Emerged From Europe Rather Than Africa
The lower jaw of the 7.175 million-year-old Graecopithecus freybergi (El Graeco) from Pyrgos Vassilissis, Greece (today in metropolitan Athens).

“While great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused — a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans including Ardipithecus and Australopithecus,” said Böhme.

The lower jaw, nicknamed ‘El Graeco’ by the scientists, has additional dental root features, suggesting that the species Graecopithecus freybergi might belong to the pre-human lineage. “We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa,” said Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.

An upper premolar found in the Balkans. Scientists say it is 7.24 million years old. (Wolfgang Gerber, University of Tübingen)

Furthermore, Graecopithecus is several hundred thousand years older than the oldest potential pre-human from Africa, the six to seven million-year-old Sahelanthropus from Chad. The research team dated the sedimentary sequence of the Graecopithecus fossil sites in Greece and Bulgaria with physical methods and got a nearly synchronous age for both fossils — 7.24 and 7.175 million years before the present. “It is at the beginning of the Messinian, an age that ends with the complete desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea,” Böhme said.

Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study added, “This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area.”

Environmental changes as the driving force for divergence

As with the out-of-East-Africa theory, the evolution of pre-humans may have been driven by dramatic environmental changes. The team led by Böhme demonstrated that the North African Sahara desert originated more than seven million years ago. The team concluded this based on geological analyses of the sediments in which the two fossils were found. Although geographically distant from the Sahara, the red-coloured silts are very fine-grained and could be classified as desert dust. An analysis of uranium, thorium and lead isotopes in individual dust particles yields an age between 0.6 and 3 billion years and infers an origin in Northern Africa.

Moreover, the dusty sediment has a high content of different salts. “These data document for the first time a spreading Sahara 7.2 million years ago, whose desert storms transported red, salty dusts to the north coast of the Mediterranean Sea in its then form,” the Tübingen researchers said. This process is also observable today. However, the researchers’ modelling shows that, with up to 250 grams per square meter and year, the amount of dust in the past considerably exceeds recent dust loadings in Southern Europe more than tenfold, comparable to the situation in the present-day Sahel zone in Africa.

Fire, grass, and water stress

The researchers further showed that, contemporary to the development of the Sahara in North Africa, a savannah biome formed in Europe.

Using a combination of new methodologies, they studied microscopic fragments of charcoal and plant silicate particles, called phytoliths. Many of the phytoliths identified derive from grasses and particularly from those that use the metabolic pathway of C4-photosynthesis, which is common in today’s tropical grasslands and savannahs. The global spread of C4-grasses began eight million years ago on the Indian subcontinent — their presence in Europe was previously unknown.

“The phytolith record provides evidence of severe droughts, and the charcoal analysis indicates recurring vegetation fires,” said Böhme. “In summary, we reconstruct a savannah, which fits with the giraffes, gazelles, antelopes, and rhinoceroses that were found together with Graecopithecus,” Spassov added

“The incipient formation of a desert in North Africa more than seven million years ago and the spread of savannahs in Southern Europe may have played a central role in the splitting of the human and chimpanzee lineages,” said Böhme. She calls this hypothesis the North Side Story, recalling the thesis of Yves Coppens, known as East Side Story.

The findings are described in two studies pubished in PLOS ONE titled “Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe” and “Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe.”

AFRICA, KENYA, WORLD

Africa’s Oldest Human Grave Found, Toddler Buried With Pillow 78,000 Years Ago

Africa’s Oldest Human Grave Found, Toddler Buried With Pillow 78,000 Years Ago

A village in East Africa buried a boy aged around 3 years old 78,000 years ago. Its caretakers dug a shallow pit, curled its small body, and may have rested its head on a pillow before committing the body to the earth.

According to a new study, the discovery of the child’s grave has revealed the earliest recorded traces of early humans burying their dead in Africa.

“It’s beautifully excavated … and there can be no dissension that it’s a burial,” says Paul Pettitt, a palaeolithic archaeologist at Durham University who studies ancient mortuary practices and was not involved with the work. “It shows that the tradition of burying some of the dead … probably arose from a common custom amidst Homo sapiens in Africa.”

Intentional burials are relatively rare in the archaeological record before about 30,000 years ago. Previously, the oldest suspected burials in Africa dated to 74,000 and 68,000 years ago—in South Africa’s Border Cave and in Taramsa, Egypt, respectively. In Eurasia, burials of modern humans and Neanderthals up to 120,000 years old have been found, but those involved peoples who contributed little to humans living today.

The new grave was found in 2013 under the rocky overhang of a cave called Panga ya Saidi along the coastline of southeastern Kenya. Archaeologists and local workers noticed an unusual, pit-shaped undulation of sediment within the walls of one of their trenches.

The cave site of Panga ya Saidi, in Kenya’s Kilifi County is seen in this undated photograph.

When they inspected it, a small bone fell out—and promptly turned to dust. Realizing they had found an extraordinarily delicate fossil, the archaeologists spent the next 4 years painstakingly digging and casting the fragile bones in plaster. Two teeth later analyzed at the National Museums of Kenya unambiguously identified the body as a human child.

The researchers then sent the remains to a lab at the National Center for Research on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, for further analysis. Virtually sorting through the layers of bone and dirt using computerized tomography, scientists analyzed the bones.

They couldn’t determine how the child had died, but its position suggested caretakers had deliberately curled it into a fetal position before placing it into a shallow pit, explains the study’s senior author, Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

The skeleton’s torqued shoulder indicates it was likely wrapped tightly in a shroudlike material, and the way the skull twisted and bent inside its grave suggests it may have been propped up on some sort of pillow that slowly decayed.

Scientists used computerized tomography to peer through layers of sediment to reveal the delicate fossils within.

A technique that tells scientists when sediments were last exposed to light revealed the remains were deposited about 78,000 years ago, making this the oldest known human burial site in Africa, the researchers report today in Nature.

Emmanuel Ndiema, an archaeologist at the National Museums and one of the study’s co-authors, named the child Mtoto, after the same word in Swahili. The remains have since been returned to the National Museums.

Africa's Oldest Human Grave Found, Toddler Buried With Pillow 78,000 Years Ago
An artist’s illustration depicts how Mtoto may have been laid to rest in its grave.

As complex symbolic behaviours, including jewellery use and ochre pigment painting, are thought to have arisen in Africa, the birthplace of our species, about 125,000 to 100,000 years ago, it’s reasonable to think that human burial may have also emerged there and spread around the world with early migrants from the continent, Petraglia says. It’s not clear though, he says, whether Neanderthals independently began to bury their dead or the roots of burial-related behaviours go back to the common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals.

Nearly half of such ancient burials involve children, Petraglia points out. Dying young may have been seen then, as now, as particularly tragic, prompting the community to commemorate the death. “Here we have a child where the legs are pulled up to the chest, in a small pit—it’s almost like the womb,” Petraglia says.

Julien Riel-Salvatore, an anthropologist at the University of Montreal, agrees that the level of care that went into Mtoto’s burial suggests a child’s death was especially poignant.

“The idea that people would go out of their way to preserve the child’s body, which would slow its decay and protect it from scavengers, reflects the fact that people cared deeply about their children,” he says.

More burials from the region and time period will need to be discovered before researchers can start to puzzle out the significance that burial held to these ancient humans, says Louise Humphrey, an anthropologist at the National History Museum in London. Still, she says, the tenderness of the burial in Panga ya Saidi reveals “an expression of personal loss”—a sorrow that transcends time.