The discovery of the oldest human burial site in the world

Archaeologists have found in the Kenyan city of Mombasa, the oldest human burial site, dating back more than 78 thousand years, inside which the remains of a three-year-old child were found, according to several media outlets published on Wednesday.

The disclosure was announced in a study published in the journal "Nature", by an international team that includes a group of scientists from the French Center for Scientific Research.

The site was discovered in the ancient cave of "Panga Ya Saidi", north of Mombasa, where the archaeological team found the body of a child, called "Mutoto", which means "child" in the Swahili language.

Archaeologists said, the boy was buried in a 78,000-year-old pit, where the child's knees were folded up to the chest and his body was wrapped in a shroud of perishable material.

He explained that the residents of this area put the child's body on his right side in the hole, and put his head on a supportive pillow before they spread the soil that was collected from the floor of the adjacent cave on the body, and the burial site remained uninterrupted for thousands of years.

"This burial adds to our understanding of the symbolic and conceptual complexity of humans," said University of Sydney archaeologist and co-author Patrick Faulkner.

No signs were found indicating the presence of offerings or gold coins, but it is likely that complex funeral rites held for the "dead" child, likely required the participation of the local community.