Archaeologists have discovered a human burial site that is believed to be the “world’s oldest,” suggesting that funerary rituals have been ongoing for at least 100,000 years. The site has been found in Tinshemet Cave in central Israel. The cave holds remarkably intact remains of early humans, dating back approximately 100,000 years, thoughtfully placed in burial pits.
This significant find sheds light on the beginnings of human burial traditions and indicates that such ceremonial practices were becoming increasingly common at that time. Authors have called the discovery “remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like hominis” in the study published this spring in Nature Human Behavior.
The remains were discovered in pits and arranged in a fetal position, known as a burial position, underscoring the intentional nature of the burials.
The authors wrote: “Viewed from the perspective of other key regional sites of this period, our findings indicate consolidation of a uniform behavioral set in the Levantine mid-MP, consisting of similar lithic technology, an increased reliance on large-game hunting, and a range of socially elaborated behaviors, comprising intentional human burial and the use of ochre in burial contexts.”
The findings include two full skeletons and three skulls with other bones. The cave, a bat-filled crevice in the hills, is important for understanding how humans lived and behaved during the Paleolithic era.
Yossi Zaidner, a director of the excavation and professor of archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, told the Associated Press: “This is an amazing revolutionary innovation for our species. It’s actually the first time we are starting to use this behaviour.”
The remains—two full skeletons and three skulls, plus other bones—were buried in curled-up positions, surrounded by over 500 basalt pebbles, animal bones, and red-orange pigments. Some items came from far away and weren’t useful for daily life, which suggests they were chosen for symbolic or ritual reasons.
“Here we see a really complex set of behaviors,” Mr Zaidner said, “not related to just food and surviving.”
Researchers found objects near the human remains at Tinshemet Cave that may have been used in ceremonies to honor the dead. These included basalt pebbles, animal bones, and red ochre pigment. Since some items came from far away and weren’t useful for everyday life, scientists believe they were chosen for spiritual or ritual purposes.
Christian Tryon, a professor at the University of Connecticut and a research associate at the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution said: “This represents a shift in how early humans treated their dead. The findings of Tinshemet reinforce previous discoveries from two similar burial sites dating from the same period in northern Israel: the Skhul cave and the Qafzeh cave.”