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| Skeleton, livescience |
Archaeologists have discovered the skull of the Stone Age in and around the rock shelter in the Sahara desert, Libya, says a new study. The skeleton was about 8,000 and 2,400 years ago, which means the cemetery has been used for thousands of years.
"This place certainly has a lot of memories," said study co-author, Mary Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge. "People have kept them all the time, and they have buried their people, over and over, from generation to generation."
About 15 women and children were buried in the rock shelter, while five men and teenagers were buried under a giant pile of stone tumuli called out during the later period, when the area turned into a desert.
The discovery, detailed in the March issue of the "Journal of Athropological Arcaeology", shows how cultures change with climate.
Millenia Burial
Ranging from 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, the Sahara desert region, called Wadi Takarkori, filled with stunted vegetation and seasonal leaf pieces. Stunning stone carving art depict ancient people herding animals, such as cows, which requires a lot of water because living in an environment that is not supportive, Tafuri said.
Tafuri and his colleagues, Savino, in Lernia start digging archaeological sites since 2003 and 2006. On the same site, the archaeologists also found huts, animal bones and pots with traces of fermented milk products beginning in Africa.
To determine the age of the skeleton, Tafuri konsenterasi measure residual isotope, or molecule of the same element with different weights.
The team also concluded that the skeleton had been buried for four thousand years. Most of the remains buried in a rock shelter between 7,300 and 5,600 years ago.
The men and teenagers under a pile of rocks had been buried since 4,500 years ago, when the area was much drier. Rock art shows drought events in the area, such as the cave paintings began to describe the goat, which requires much less water than cattle to graze, Tafuri said.
Ancient people also live not far from the area where they were buried, based on comparisons of isotopes in tooth enamel, which formed in early childhood, with the elements in the immediate environment.
Shifts in Culture?
"Exclusive use of rock shelters for women and adult burials indicate a gender-based division of the group," wrote Marina Gallinaro, an African studies researcher at Sapienza University of Rome, who was not involved in this research, via email to LiveScience.
One possibility is that during the earlier period, women have a more important role in society, and the family may even trace their ancestry through the female line relationship. But that does not know the Sahara began to expand in the region ending about 5 thousand years ago, the culture shifts and the more prominent men may have increased as a result, wrote Gallinaro.
The whole area is full of hundreds of sites that have not been excavated, said Luigi Boitani, a biologist at the Sapienza University of Rome, who has been working in the area of archaeological sites but was not involved in the study.
"The area is an untapped treasure," said Boitani.
The new findings also highlight the need to protect the fragile region, which has been closed to archaeologists since the revolution that toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi el.
Takarkori very close to the main road leading from Libya into neighboring Nigeria, so the rebels and famous political figures, such as Gadhafi's son, has been frequently through the area to flee, he said.
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