News > Archaeologists uncover oldest human burial in Africa

Archaeologists uncover oldest human burial in Africa

Archaeologists have identified the oldest known human burial in Africa during fieldwork that uncovered the remains of a child laid carefully to rest in a grave nearly 80,000 years ago.

The arrangement of the bones shows the three-year-old – named Mtoto after the Swahili word for the child – was placed with legs tucked to chest, and perhaps wrapped in a shroud with their head on a pillow, before being gently covered in soil.