World’s Oldest Burial Site of Stone Age Humans found in South Africa

This ancient burial site is thought to belong to early humans with small brains that were previously thought to be incapable of complex behavior.

As reported by Unilad, the team was led by a well-known paleoanthropologist, Lee Berger.

Researchers found several specimens of Homo naledi, a Stone Age hominid inclined to climb trees, buried about 30 meters underground in a cave system in the Cradle of Humankind, a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) world heritage site in near Johannesburg.

“These are the oldest burials ever recorded in the hominin record, predating evidence of Homo sapiens burials by at least 100,000 years,” the scientists wrote at eLife.

The findings challenge current understanding of human evolution, as it is generally thought that greater brain development allowed for complex ‘interpreting’ activities such as burying the dead.

The oldest burials ever discovered, found in West Asia and Africa, contained the remains of Homo sapiens and are estimated to be around 100,000 years old.

Those found in South Africa by Berger, whose previous announcement was controversial, and his co-researchers, date to at least 200,000 years before Christ (BC).