She was in her early twenties. One child is five, and the other is eight. Maybe they were suddenly overtaken by a sandstorm or a mysterious disease. Or maybe they just couldn't live without each other. And someone loving buried them in such a way that even after five thousand years the mother stretches out her arms to meet her children in order to forever embrace them on a carpet of flowers.
A very rare triple burial dating from around 3315 BC
Photo by Mike Hettwer / National Geographic
Of course, we will never know for sure what happened to this family. But how interesting, armed with archaeological evidence, to try to restore the picture of the life of our ancestors!
Or rather, not really ours. We are talking about the Sahara, where an international team of researchers is excavating Stone Age burials. Several thousand years later, the story of the twists and turns of the fate of the ancient inhabitants of Africa was published in the PLoS ONE magazine.
In those days, the Black Continent was not yet divided into two parts by the endless desert, and fertile lands bloomed in these places, antelopes grazed and hippos frolicked. And people settled around large, but shallow (up to 8 meters) lakes - with fish and crocodiles.
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In total, about two hundred graves were found in Gobero, in the region of the Niger River. These excavations are a rare case when scientists have managed to reconstruct in sufficient detail the picture of human life over several millennia.
Ancient Africans left behind not only burials, but also garbage dumps (very valuable for scientists) and household items, in particular ceramics.
The desert, merciless to the living, mysteriously preserved traces of an extinct civilization. Up to the dining sets of that time - clam shells neatly arranged by the hostesses.
And people in these parts, after the Sahara swallowed them up, were quite few - which could not but affect the safety of the remains.
A group of paleontologists got stuck in the local sands back in 2000 in search of dinosaur bones. The work had already come to an end when one of the group members, Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, convinced his colleagues to continue excavating - he really liked the elusive outlines of something on the horizon.
The scientist's instinct did not disappoint. Having got closer to the suspicious place, the researchers found human remains, which could be seen with the naked eye under a layer of sand. They look very ancient.
On the move, they managed to unearth about fifteen skeletons. And almost a dead man's chest - ancient artifacts that can be more valuable than any treasure.
In general, paleontologists were forced to give way to anthropologists and archaeologists. And some have retrained themselves.
Using the best practices for finding dinosaurs, the researchers did not conduct excavations in the traditional way - with a spatula and a brush, but resorted to a new method: the sand around the remains was fixed with a special compound, and then they made a "mummy" with a plaster and removed the entire skeleton.
Dr. Sereno managed to connect the National Geographic Society of the United States to the project, under whose patronage in 2003 the excavation began.
Photo by Mike Hettwer / National Geographic).
Despite the relative safety of the settlements, the desert climate turned out to have disadvantages: dry winds pretty much ruffled the remains, ridding them of the smallest particles of tissue so needed by archaeologists. The sands created other difficulties: they are free-flowing, which excludes the dating of the remains by rock deposits.
Scientists had to use the analysis of strontium isotopes in intraosseous material - primarily taken from teeth. Another important source of information was the remains of plant pollen on pottery, stone tools, bones and in general.
In the end, despite all the difficulties, this is what we managed to find out.
A garbage heap dating from the middle Holocene. In addition to the analysis of isotopes and pollen at individual objects, a comparative craniometric analysis of the remains with other human remains found in Africa was carried out, as well as luminescence analysis for the dating of various objects - for example, this garbage heap
Photo by Sereno et al./PLoS ONE
The "human" history of the Sahara began about 10 thousand years ago, when the last ice age finally ended, giving birth to a new geological era - the Holocene.
The first hunter-gatherer-fishermen came to Gobero about 8 thousand years ago and lived there for one and a half thousand years - until about 6200 BC. Scientists attributed them to the Kiffian culture.
These were people of the so-called transition period - from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one, and they had already buried their relatives. By the way, one of the burials became the oldest known object of this kind in Africa - it is dated back to 7500 BC.
By the way, some scientists have suspicions that the culture of the Tenerians could have fallen under the influence of the ancient Egyptians: during the excavations, minerals were discovered that can be found only in the northern Mediterranean.
Photo by Sereno et al./PLoS ONE
Despite the fact that agriculture had not yet penetrated to the Kiffians, they were distinguished by a surprisingly impressive physique: the growth of both men and women averaged about two meters.
Apparently, Africans and on a fish diet felt confident - harpoons were found at the excavation site for hunting giant five-meter catfish. It was completely different in the Sahara then. The retreating glacier filled the desert with life.
But then the great dry land came again and lasted a thousand years: from 6200 to 5200 BC.
What happened during this millennium is not entirely clear, but after the drought, when the water returned to the desert again, completely different people began to live there. They were less prominent, slender and had elongated narrow heads.
But the "kids", whom scientists called the Tenerians (after the Tenere Desert), have become more advanced. Hunters acquired sophisticated tools, and objects of art, including ivory and mollusk shells, were brought into their homes.
But the biggest surprise was the complexity and variety of burial rituals. It was the Tenerians who buried the young woman and her children so touchingly.
On a fabulous carpet of fragrant buds. This paleontological skills of Dr. Sereno came in handy: the researchers found a large amount of pollen in the burial, and of completely different colors.
However, impressive ritual practices are not the most surprising. For burials, people who are separated by several thousand years have chosen the same place: their graves, alternating with each other, are scattered over two ancient dunes.
"The Sahara is one of the most interesting laboratories for studying the human response to climate change," said anthropologist Susan Keech McIntosh of the University of Houston. "In this case, the quantity and quality of the remains give us an unprecedented level of detail in understanding the processes that were taking place then."
Photo by Sereno et al./PLoS ONE
According to the authors of the work, these were nevertheless representatives of two different cultures, and one later replaced the other.
But not everyone is convinced of the independence of the two populations. Some researchers, on the contrary, see this as the main discovery and the main mystery at the same time.
For example, Joel Irish of the University of Alaska, Fairbanks believes that a more detailed comparative analysis of “old” and “new” Goberians is needed. In his opinion, it could well have been the same people who first left and then returned. True, slightly modified.
Are the Kiffians (the skull on the left is about 9.5 thousand years old) and the Tenerians (the skull on the right is about 5.8 thousand years old) are relatives? And did not the dry period diet lead to the appropriate adaptation of the ancient Africans?
Photo by Mike Hettwer / National Geographic
A more accurate answer to this question could have been obtained with the help of a comparative analysis of DNA, but the genetic material has not yet been extracted. According to Dr. Sereno, he tried to do it several times, but failed.
Nevertheless, the American remains optimistic: "It will not be easy, but we can handle it."
If further research is successful, it will almost be possible for the first time to restore the consistent development of an ancient culture over several millennia.