\n The pyre and human remains were found near the base of Mount Hora, a granite mountain that rises abruptly from and towers hundreds of feet above an otherwise flat plain. The fragments, largely from arm and leg bones, belonged to a woman between the ages of 18 and 60 who stood just under 5 feet tall, according to forensic analysis.\n <\/p>\n
\n The site, called Hora 1, is underneath a natural boulder overhang large enough to shelter 30 people. It captured the interest of scientists in the 1950s when it was first excavated and discovered to be a hunter-gatherer burial ground. More recent research begun in 2016 has shown that humans started living at the site about 21,000 years ago and buried their dead there 8,000 to 16,000 years ago.\n <\/p>\n
\n However, the bone fragments mark the only cremation to have occurred at the site, which makes the discovery even more unusual given that they were uncommon during that time period, the researchers said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cCremation is very rare among ancient and modern hunter-gatherers, at least partially because pyres require a huge amount of labor, time, and fuel to transform a body into fragmented and calcined bone and ash,\u201d said lead author Jessica Cerezo-Rom\u00e1n, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.\n <\/p>\n
\n The unusual discovery is shedding light on the complex nature of largely unknown funerary practices of African hunter-gatherers \u2014 and raises the question of why such effort was made to cremate only one person.\n <\/p>\n
\n Excavations at the site between 2016 and 2019 revealed a large ash mound about the size of a queen bed containing two clusters of human bone fragments that exhibited burn patterns.\n <\/p>\n
\n Previous discoveries of cremations in Africa date to pastoral neolithic herders from 3,500 years ago or later food-producing societies with higher population densities, which made the discovery even more unexpected, the researchers said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhile we were excavating the pyre feature, there was an ongoing argument about how this could not possibly be a hunter-gatherer mortuary practice, and how there was no way it could be more than a couple thousand years old,\u201d said study coauthor Dr. Jessica Thompson, assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Yale University. \u201cWhen the radiocarbon dates came back, they blew us away.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The researchers\u2019 analysis also revealed that tremendous care had been taken to carry out the cremation.\n <\/p>\n
\n Based on evidence of fungus and termites in the wood, about 70 pounds (30 kilograms) of dry deadwood was collected for the pyre, which would have taken considerable time to collect, said study coauthor Dr. Elizabeth Sawchuk, curator of human evolution at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.\n <\/p>\n
\n A detailed analysis of the pyre sediments shows the fire reached temperatures greater than 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius).\n <\/p>\n
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\n The size of the ash mound also suggests that the fire burned anywhere from several hours to several days, which wouldn\u2019t have been possible unless the blaze was actively refueled and stoked, Sawchuk added.\n <\/p>\n
\n Flaked points of stone tools were also found on the pyre, suggesting the pointed stones were added during the cremation as funerary objects.\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s fascinating to see how far back cremation practices originate, said Lorraine Hu, manager of human histories and cultures at the National Geographic Society. Hu is currently a program officer for the society\u2019s grants program that awarded Thompson\u2019s grant, but she was not employed by the organization during Thompson\u2019s grant-funded work.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cCremation is something that we in the modern Western world don\u2019t often give a second thought to, because it\u2019s done by professionals in closed environments, but for other societies it would\u2019ve been an intense visceral experience to build, light, and bury a funeral pyre,\u201d Hu said. \u201cIt shows that these early hunter-gatherers had intentional, complex beliefs about remembrance and how to treat their dead.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
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\n Cut marks on the bones show that people actively helped the cremation process along by removing some of the woman\u2019s flesh, said Thompson, who is also an assistant curator of anthropology at the Yale Peabody Museum. The team ruled out the idea that the woman was a victim of cannibalism because the cut marks were different from patterns on animal bones from the site, she added.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cSurprisingly, there were no fragments of teeth or skull bones in the pyre,\u201d Sawchuk said. \u201cBecause those parts are usually preserved in cremations, we believe the head may have been removed prior to burning.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n While removing the skull and cutting flesh from bone sounds gruesome, complex rituals of remembrance may have been the underlying motivation, Cerezo-Rom\u00e1n said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThere is growing evidence among ancient hunter-gatherers in Malawi for mortuary rituals that include posthumous removal, curation, and secondary reburial of body parts, perhaps as tokens,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n
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\n Cut marks on bones are commonly obscured or lost during the cremation process, which makes the discovery a great find, said Dr. Joel D.
Irish, subject leader in anthropology and archaeology at the UK\u2019s Liverpool John Moores University. Irish was not involved in the new research. Dismembering an adult for cremation would have made the process easier, especially after the hunter-gatherers went to such extreme measures just to cremate one body, he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat it is such an early date, and that they would have been transient as hunter\/gatherers makes it more amazing,\u201d Irish wrote in an email. \u201cThey clearly had advanced belief systems and a high level of social complexity at this early date.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n But why was this one woman cremated? There is evidence of other complete burials at the site, indicating that the woman must have merited special treatment, Thompson said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Little is known about her, other than her bones suggest she was likely middle-aged with a low degree of mobility. But she used her arms more than expected compared with other hunter-gatherers buried at the site, Cerezo-Rom\u00e1n said.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhile we can never truly know the motivations of ancient peoples, it seems likely that unusual circumstances in her life and\/or death prompted this kind of unusual cultural treatment,\u201d Sawchuk said. \u201cWhether it was for positive or negative reasons is a big question mark.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Malawi was a British colony when Hora 1 was first excavated in 1950, a time when archaeology seemed more like treasure hunting than science, Thompson said. Skeletons belonging to a man and a woman were found there, but the remains weren\u2019t dated. The rest of the site was considered mysterious but largely ignored due to the lack of complete remains.\n <\/p>\n
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