"New excavations at the Middle Stone Age (MSA) shell midden of Hoedjiespunt 1 (HDP1) on the West Coast of South Africa are shedding light on the evolution of coastal adaptations and MSA innovations.
The PYS burial sheds light on how MSA populations interacted with the dead. The morphological assessment of the partial skeleton is consistent with its assignment to Homo sapiens, although the preservation of some primitive features in the dentition supports increasing evidence for non-gradual assembly of modern traits during the emergence of our species. The presence of little or no displacement of the unstable joints during ecomposition points to an interment in a filled space (grave earth), making the PYS finding the oldest known human burial in Africa. Taphonomical evidence, such as the strict articulation or good natomical association of the skeletal elements and histological evidence of putrefaction, support the in-place decomposition of the fresh body. Geochemical, granulometric and micromorphological analyses of the burial pit content and encasing archaeological layers indicate that the pit was deliberately excavated. Recent excavations have revealed a pit feature containing a child in a flexed position. Here we describe the partial skeleton of a roughly 2.5- to 3.0-year-old child dating to 78.3 ± 4.1 thousand years ago, which was recovered in the MSA layers of Panga ya Saidi (PYS), a cave site in the tropical upland coast of Kenya. Human burials dated to the Middle Stone Age (MSA) are exceedingly rare in Africa and unknown in East Africa. The origin and evolution of hominin mortuary practices are topics of intense interest and debate.
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