The discovery of the oldest known human burial site, a child's grave in a Kenyan cave, sheds new light on the emotional life of early Homo sapiens, the head of archaeology for the east African country's museums said on Wednesday. Scientists announced last week that they had found the site, dating to around 78,000 years ago, where a youngster they have nicknamed 'Mtoto' or 'child' in Swahili was buried in a cave called Panga ya Saidi near the Kenyan coast. "It's significant . because it's for the first time that we're beginning to get a feel of the cognitive and also the emotional abilities at this point in time," Emmanuel Ndiema told Reuters in an interview.
A group of archaeologists has found the oldest deliberate burial of a modern human ever discovered in Africa, dating back 78,300 years ago. The discovery sheds new light on the early origins of this ancient practice.