IN PICS! Oldest human burial site discovered in Kenya

It is a scene that exudes sadness: a child perhaps 2-1/2 or 3 years old buried in a shallow grave under the sheltered overhang of a cave, head resting on a pillow and the upper part of the body carefully wrapped in a shroud.

Scientists said on Wednesday they have found the oldest-known human burial in Africa, the continent that gave rise to our species, dating to about 78,000 years ago at a cave site called Panga ya Saidi near the Kenyan coast. They nicknamed the youngster 'Mtoto,' meaning 'child' in Swahili.

The discovery, the researchers said, sheds light on the development of early complex social behaviours in Homo sapiens.

"This is at the root of the symbolic mind that characterizes Homo sapiens," said anthropologist María Martinón-Torres, director of the National Research Center on Human Evolution (CENIEH) in Spain and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

"The child was buried in a residential site, close to where this community lived, evincing how intimately life and death are related. Only humans treat the dead with the same respect, consideration and even tenderness they treat the living. Even when we die, we continue to be someone for our group," Martinón-Torres added.

Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, later spreading worldwide. The highly decomposed bones, found in a circular pit, were encased in plaster and eventually taken to CENIEH for study.