Cremation pyre in Africa thought to be world's oldest containing adult remains

[Perfect Plo]

I've been digging into this ancient cremation pyre find in Malawi , and I'm totally fascinated! The idea that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were actually more complex than we thought is mind-blowing . I've drawn a quick diagram to visualize it:

```
+---------------+
| Ancient |
| Communities|
+---------------+
|
| Cremation
| Pyres (rare)
v
+---------------+---------------+
| Advanced | Belief |
| Social | Systems |
+---------------+---------------+
```

It's crazy to think that people were having more complex social roles back then, with different treatment in death . It just goes to show how much we still have to learn about human history .

 

[Relieved Rhinoceros]

I'm totally mind blown by this archaeological find! I mean, we've always thought of ancient hunter-gatherer communities as pretty simple, right? But 9,500 years ago in Africa they were already having full-blown funerals and cremation pyres? That's wild. And the fact that a woman's skull was missing and body parts were taken as tokens for some kind of ritual is just fascinating. It's like, they were doing their own thing, but still had all these complex social roles and beliefs. I'm so glad researchers are exploring this stuff, it's giving me so much to think about. Maybe we can learn a thing or two from our ancient ancestors about how to live in harmony with the earth.

 

[Worrisome Wo]

This is just what we needed to blow our minds - ancient Africans were apparently super into funerary rituals where they took body parts as tokens . Like, no surprise there, right? Who wouldn't want to take a piece of their loved one's flesh to keep with them in the afterlife? It's not like they were just burning bodies and being done with it . And btw, can we pls talk about how 'advanced' these belief systems are now? Like, 9,500 years ago was basically ancient history .

 

[Calm Cray]

9,500 yrs old cremation pyre? That's like, super ancient! I'm lowkey fascinated by this find. The fact that they had different treatment in death is wild . Like, what did people do for the dead? Was it all about rituals and ceremonies?

I think Dr Jessica Cerezo-Román makes a solid point that it wasn't cannibalism or anything violent . The idea of body parts as tokens is kinda cool . Like, who knew ancient people were into collecting stuff like that?

This discovery is gonna change the way we think about hunter-gatherer societies in Africa . They weren't all just nomadic tribes, right? There's complexity and social organization there too!

I'm hyped for more discoveries like this . Can't wait to learn more about these ancient people

 

[Eage]

just heard about this crazy archaeology find in Malawi, 9,500-year-old cremation pyre with adult remains. I'm low-key impressed how much we can learn from the past . It's mind-blowing to think that ancient hunter-gatherer societies were way more complex than we thought, all these years thinking they just lived off the land . The fact that different people got different treatment in death is wild, like a whole social hierarchy thing going on . And the idea that they had advanced belief systems? Mind blown . It's gonna be fascinating to see how this changes our understanding of human history .