By Ashley Strickland, CNN
(CNN) — Burned bone fragments found in northern Malawi have revealed the oldest cremation pyre ever found in Africa — and unearthed new mysteries that may be hard to solve.
By analyzing the bones and pyre sediments, researchers believe that hunter-gatherers cremated the body of a woman about 9,500 years ago, according to their study published Thursday in the journal Science Advances.
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.
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.
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.
“Cremation 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,” said lead author Jessica Cerezo-Román, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.
The unusual discovery is shedding light on the complex nature of largely unknown funerary practices of African hunter-gatherers — and raises the question of why such effort was made to cremate only one person.
A spectacular effort
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.
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.
“While 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,” said study coauthor Dr. Jessica Thompson, assistant professor in the department of anthropology at Yale University. “When the radiocarbon dates came back, they blew us away.”
The researchers’ analysis also revealed that tremendous care had been taken to carry out the cremation.
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.
A detailed analysis of the pyre sediments shows the fire reached temperatures greater than 932 degrees Fahrenheit (500 degrees Celsius).
The size of the ash mound also suggests that the fire burned anywhere from several hours to several days, which wouldn’t have been possible unless the blaze was actively refueled and stoked, Sawchuk added.
Flaked points of stone tools were also found on the pyre, suggesting the pointed stones were added during the cremation as funerary objects.
It’s fascinating to see how far back cremation practices originate, said Lorraine Hu, manager of human histories and cultures at the National Geographic So