One of the things that distinguishes us as humans is the way we treat the dead, how we say goodbye to our loved ones and the other members of our society. 78,300 years ago, the loss of a
sapiens
child
of about three years in the territory that is now Kenya shocked the group of people with whom he lived. They said goodbye to him in a way similar to that which is still in style in many places: they carefully placed his body in a fetal position, they rested his head on a kind of pillow, they shrouded his upper body with a shroud of a perishable material - probably animal skin or large leaves - and they buried him shortly after death.
The remains of this small man, nicknamed by the name of Mtoto (which in Swahili means El Niño), have been found in the Kenyan site of Panga ya Saidi.
This is the intentional funerary behavior of our oldest species that has been found in Africa, considered the cradle of biological and cultural modernity of humanity, although in Eurasia, specifically in the Israeli sites of Skhul and Qafzeh, they had already been discovered burials of modern humans and Neanderthals older than Mtoto, dating back 120,000 years.
"There are many ways of relating to the dead and treating their bodies. Our ancestors sometimes pushed aside a member of their deceased group so as not to attract predators. There are corpses with cut marks because they had been disarticulated, perhaps to facilitate their transfer, or for gastronomic cannibalism, but there
comes a time when interactions with the dead exceed those practical purposes.
Time and effort are invested and that is when we talk about mortuary behaviors. To speak of burial, it is not enough to put the body in a hole or a natural crevice, but to create a space intentionally, and this is the first evidence of burial in Africa ", explains in a telephone conversation María Martinón-Torres, director of the National Center for Research on Human Evolution (CENIEH), in Burgos.
Why modern human burials had not been found in Africa until now at that early date remains a mystery. "
This type of funeral behavior reflects links that show the complexity of the human mind
and its symbolic capacity. We knew that the
sapiens
had it but in Africa we lacked the clear evidence of those burials. There may be other funeral practices that do not leave a mark, such as rites in the open air or music, which does not fossilize, that have escaped us ", argues Martinón-Torres, who has been responsible for the team that has analyzed the remains of Mtoto in the Burgos laboratories. There in 2018 I carry the fossilized child literally in my arms from Vienna.
External view of the block inside which was part of the child's skeleton (above);
bottom, skull and jaw
A year earlier, researchers from the Max Planck and the National Museum of Kenya had found his remains at the Panga ya Saidi site, which began to be excavated in 2010. In 2013 they detected and documented a ripple in the ground, which they arrived at in 2017. "They saw that inside there was an accumulation of very fragile bones, it was like excavating ash, but due to the advanced state of decomposition they were too delicate to study
in situ,
so they decided to extract the block of sediment that contained the fossils and cast it in plaster," he says. Martinón-Torres.
Once he was transferred to the Nairobi museum, the plaster was removed and they saw two teeth on the surface, but they didn't know if they were from humans or hominids: "They thought they might be from a small monkey. Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute for Science of Human History, he sent me photos of the block of earth and I confirmed that they were human teeth, "says the Spanish scientist.
In March 2018 he went to give a lecture in Vienna and there he met Petraglia and another of the scientists who had discovered the remains, Emmanuel Ndiema, who was carrying the block with the boy's fossils, although at that time they still did not know what it contained. "I confirmed that they were human and we agreed that at CENIEH we had the best equipment and personnel to face a challenge like this, since the remains were in a state of extreme fragility." So after consulting with the head of Conservation and Restoration of CENIEH, Pilar Fernández-Colón, they agreed that he would take it immediately to Burgos.
"I remember the trip with great enthusiasm and a lot of nerves. I carried the block in my hand luggage
, first on a regional trip by train from Vienna to Munich, then by plane to Madrid and from there to Burgos," recalls Martinón-Torres.
At the security controls, he showed the documentation of the museums to the perplexity of the airport security workers.
At CENIEH they studied it in depth, combining classical excavation methods with imaging techniques such as microscopy, computed microtomography, digital mapping and 3D analysis.
that, in a non-destructive way, allowed us to find out what was inside the block and reconstruct the evolution of the body from when it was buried until it acquired its current position due to the passage of time and the decomposition of the materials that served as a pillow.
The boy was lying on his right side with his knees to his chest.
Microscopic analysis of the bones and surrounding soil confirmed that, after being deposited in the cavity, it
was quickly covered with soil,
thus protecting it from deterioration and disarticulation.
The position of the bones indicates that they must have been wrapped in a tight shroud or shroud, says the scientist.
They calculate that he died when he was between two and a half and three years old but they don't know what: "The state of preservation was very delicate. Identifying a cause of death in the fossil record is generally very difficult unless you have a fatal wound, because usually there is no mark of the cause of death, "he says.
Virtual reconstruction of Mtoto's position in his grave Jorge González / Elena Santos
Based on the analysis of the fossils, they believe that it was a child: "Teeth have two types of tissue, enamel, which is what we see, and dentin. The proportion of both is different if you are a man or a woman; they usually have more dentin and thinner enamel, so according to our analysis
there is a greater probability that Mtoto had been a child, although we are not sure, "says the scientist.
After conducting the investigation in Burgos, in May 2019 the CENIEH team returned the body to Kenya and continued studying the data collected.
Now rest in the National Museum of Kenya, in Nairobi, in the vault of fossils along with other famous emblematic remains such as the Turkana Child, the 'Nutcracker' (
Paranthropus boisei
) and the first fossil of
Homo habilis.
The pandemic forced the cancellation of the trip that Martinón-Torres was going to make to the Panga and Saidi site to see the place where Mtoto came from.
"Hopefully we find more burials like his."
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