An artist's rendering of a cremation scene for an adult woman in Malawi, Africa, 500 years ago./Courtesy of Arizona State University

The oldest cremation site in Africa, dating to 9,500 years ago, has been found. Until now, the oldest confirmed cremation in Africa appeared only among Neolithic pastoralists 3,500 years ago. This cremation site also set a record as the oldest in the world for burning an adult body.

An international team led by Jessica Thompson, a professor of anthropology at Yale University, said on the 2nd in the journal Science Advances that they found evidence that hunter-gatherers cremated an adult woman on a wooden pyre at the foot of a mountain in southeastern Malawi, Africa. This is also the first time a cremation custom has been confirmed in an African hunter-gatherer society.

The location of the Hora 1 site in Malawi where a 9,500-year-old cremation ground was excavated (black outline on the map) and a field photo./Courtesy of Yale University

◇Traces of burned remains without a head found

Near the Kasitu River in northern Malawi stands Mount Hora, a rocky mountain 110 meters high. Excavations have been conducted there since the 1950s, identifying the site as a burial ground for hunter-gatherers. Previous research indicates the first settlement in the area was about 21,000 years ago, and it was used as a burial ground between 16,000 and 8,000 years ago. All buried remains were intact.

Through excavations in 2018 and 2018, the team uncovered traces of a pyre the size of a queen-size bed at HOR-1, a rock-hill site on Mount Hora. Radiocarbon measurements dated it to 9,540–9,454 years ago. Isotopes are atoms with the same atomic number but different mass. Carbon also has isotopes with masses of 12 and 14. Carbon-14 turns into nitrogen over time. Scientists estimate ages by analyzing the ratio of carbon-14 in organic matter.

The cremation site also yielded 170 fragments of burned bone along with ash, most of them arm and leg bones. The cremated individual was an adult woman, 18–60 years old, estimated to be 145–155 cm tall. By analyzing heat-induced changes in the bones, the team confirmed the cremation occurred within a few days after death. They also said cut marks on the bones indicate the body was defleshed before cremation. Stone tools and flint presumed to have been used for removing flesh were also found at the site.

Elizabeth Sawchuk of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, a co-author of the paper, said, "Surprisingly, no teeth or skull fragments were found at the cremation site," and added, "Given that these parts tend to preserve well even when burned, the head may have been removed before cremation." The team interpreted this as evidence of a funerary practice of preserving skulls to remember and venerate ancestors, noting that partial preservation of bodies has been observed in the same region.

Gray flint (top) and flakes from stone-tool production from the 9,500-year-old cremation site in Malawi, Africa./Courtesy of New York University

◇Maintaining high temperatures during cremation suggests an organized society

Humans have long practiced cremation. At Lake Mungo in Australia, remains of a burned woman dating to about 40,000 years ago have been found. But while that site shows a body burned and then buried, pyre features that reveal the act of cremation itself do not appear until 30,000 years later. The oldest cremation-pyre site is from 11,500 years ago at Xaasaa Na' in Alaska, United States. In 2010, the burned remains of a 3-year-old child were found inside a hearth in the middle of a dwelling site there.

The team said the Malawi cremation site shows that even hunter-gatherer societies at the time were organized enough to carry out cremations, which require substantial time and labor. Jessica Cerezo-Román, the first author of the paper and a professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma, said, "Cremation is a very rare practice in hunter-gatherer societies, past or present," adding, "It takes massive labor and time to build a pyre that reduces a body to ash and to maintain sufficient heat."

The team explained, "At least 30 kg of wood would have been needed to build the pyre," which suggests considerable communal effort. Analysis of ash deposits and bone fragments indicated fuel was continually added to maintain temperatures above 500 degrees Celsius.

Joel Irish of Liverpool John Moores University said of the study, "It is surprising that hunter-gatherers who occupied the area only intermittently at such an early time built a cremation site," adding, "It is clear that hunter-gatherers then already possessed highly developed belief systems and a high degree of social complexity."

Cremation rites of a hunter-gatherer society in Malawi, Africa, 9,500 years ago. A pyre is built as a communal task and the body is burned. Cut marks on bones show that some parts of the body were defleshed (c). Carbonized reishi mushrooms and termite mounds suggests that dead wood was used as fuel (i). The absence of skull and dental remains suggests they may have been removed before cremation (j). Evidence that the fire was reignited multiple times over the pyre location is interpreted as an act to remember the place (k)./Courtesy of Science Advances

Interestingly, at the HOR-1 site, several large fires occurred on top of the pyre within 500 years after the woman was cremated. There were no traces of other bodies being burned. The team inferred that some form of memorial event took place at the cremation site.

Thompson said, "This suggests people remembered the location of the pyre used for the cremation and recognized its significance," adding, "The fact that only one woman was cremated, unlike other buried remains, indicates there may have been something warranting special treatment."

References

Science Advances(2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adz9554

Science(2011), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1201581

World Archaeology(1970), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00438243.1970.9979463

※ This article has been translated by AI. Share your feedback here.