Oldest known human burial identified in Lower Central America
The remains of a young woman were discovered by archaeologists in what is now the Nicaraguan village of Bleera Kaanu. Buried some 5,900 years ago, the unusually muscular woman young woman is the oldest known human buried in lower Central America to date, adding a significant chapter to the region’s archaeological record.
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The excavated burial of the ancient woman [Credit: Roksandic M. et al., Antiquity 2018; Courtesy of BICU-CIDCA] |
Until a team of Canadian, German and Nicaraguan researchers has deemed her final resting site. As the group writes in a study published in the journal Antiquity, the find “represents an important contribution to our understanding of the early peopling” of the Caribbean.
Ancient human remains are rarely found in lower Central America and similarly tropical regions, as acidic soil tends to damage bone. Luckily, lead author Mirjana Roksandic, an anthropologist at Canada’s University of Winnipeg, says the shell mound placed over the woman’s grave “reduced the acidity of the soil and helped preserve the remains.”
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The left radius (arm bone) of the ancient woman. Notice the pronounced markings on the bone, which suggest she was muscular [Credit: Roksandic M. et al., Antiquity 2018] |
The woman stood 4-feet 11-inches tall, and had, in the words of Roksandic, “strongly developed musculature of the forearm,” possibly due to rowing or similar strengthening activities.
Live Science, study co-author Harly Duncan, a member of the Bleera Kaanu community, introduced the other researchers to an 82-year-old woman who had just rowed four hours to visit family across the water. “Kids as young as 9 rowed around Rama islands”—a cluster of land on Nicaragua’s eastern coast—”in a dugout,” Roksandic adds.
It remains too early for researchers to offer a definitive analysis of the culture that produced the woman. For now, her remains are being held in the CIDCA Historical Cultural Museum of the Caribbean Coast.
Source: Archaeology & Arts [January 10, 2019]
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