A new study from Ethiopia’s Afar Rift may push the story of human mortuary behavior much deeper into prehistory. Researchers working in the Middle Awash region have identified early Homo sapiens remains dated to roughly 100,000 years ago, including bone fragments that appear to have been exposed to high temperatures. If this burning was intentional, the find could represent the earliest known evidence of human cremation, far older than the previously recognized record.

The discovery comes from the Halibee Member of the Dawaitoli Formation, specifically the Faro Daba beds, a Middle Stone Age landscape preserved in the Afar Rift of northeastern Ethiopia. The area is especially important because it offers rare open-air archaeological contexts from a period when early modern humans were already living in Africa but had not yet begun the later major dispersals into Eurasia. The study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences under the title Halibee member archaeology: Middle Stone Age environment, technology, and postmortem modifications.

The key evidence involves three partial Homo sapiens skeletons recovered from sediments dated to about 100,000 years ago. Each individual appears to have followed a different postmortem path. One skeleton shows signs of rapid burial, with no clear evidence of carnivore damage or human modification. Another was affected by scavengers, preserving tooth marks and damage consistent with animal activity near the time of death. The third, however, is the most provocative: it consists of a tooth and small bone fragments showing cracking, discoloration, charring, and fragmentation consistent with exposure to intense heat.

That burned individual is where the debate begins. The researchers are careful not to claim certainty. Natural fire, such as a bushfire, remains a possible explanation. But if the burning was deliberate and connected to treatment of the dead, it would change the known timeline of cremation dramatically. The current global benchmark often points to Lake Mungo in Australia, where cremated human remains are generally placed around 40,000 to 42,000 years ago. In Africa, confirmed intentional cremation is much later, with recent work identifying a 9,500-year-old pyre in Malawi as the oldest confirmed intentional cremation on the continent.

This is why the Ethiopian evidence matters so much. It does not simply add another burial to the record. It raises the possibility that symbolic or ritual treatment of the dead may have existed among Homo sapiens far earlier than previously demonstrated. Still, the strongest wording is possible cremation, not confirmed cremation. The scientific value of the find lies precisely in that tension: the bones are old, the heat exposure is real, but the meaning of the burning remains open.

The wider archaeological context strengthens the importance of the site. Researchers documented thousands of Middle Stone Age stone tools across the ancient floodplain. Many were made from local volcanic rocks, especially basalt, suggesting tool production happened directly at the site. A small number were made from obsidian, a volcanic glass that appears to have come from outside the immediate area. This may point to long-distance movement, exchange, or access to raw material sources that are no longer visible today.

The environment was not a barren desert like much of the region appears today. Geological and paleontological evidence indicates a wooded floodplain shaped by seasonal flooding from the ancient Awash River. More than 3,000 animal fossils were studied, including monkeys, rodents, and large mammals. The presence of tree-dwelling monkeys, including ancestors of vervets and black-and-white colobus monkeys, suggests that the landscape offered shade, water, and vegetation.

This seasonal setting likely shaped human behavior. The site seems to have been visited repeatedly for short periods rather than occupied continuously. Early Homo sapiens may have returned when water, animals, plant resources, and workable stone were available. The researchers argue that local hydrology, especially flood cycles, may have influenced human life more directly than broad global climate patterns.

Another reason the discovery is significant is preservation. Open-air Middle Stone Age sites with human fossils, tools, and animal remains in close association are rare. Many early human records come from caves, which preserve material differently and may give a narrower picture of ancient behavior. At Faro Daba, artifacts and fossils appear to have remained largely undisturbed, allowing researchers to examine spatial relationships between bones, tools, sediments, and environmental evidence with unusual clarity.

The burned remains therefore sit inside a much larger story. This was not an isolated bone fragment without context. It was part of a preserved ancient landscape where early Homo sapiens made tools, moved across terrain, encountered animals, used floodplain resources, and left behind traces of life and death. Whether the burned bones represent a deliberate mortuary rite or an accidental natural fire, they still reveal a complex postmortem history in one of the most important regions for human evolution.

For now, the most responsible conclusion is cautious but powerful: Ethiopia’s Afar Rift has produced possible evidence of cremation around 100,000 years ago. If future analysis confirms intentional burning of the dead, the discovery would extend the known history of human cremation by tens of thousands of years. Even if it remains unresolved, the find already challenges simple ideas about early Homo sapiens and shows that death, environment, fire, and memory may have intersected far earlier than we once imagined.

According to a new study, a Neanderthal living in Siberia around 60,000 years ago may have opened their mouth while someone, or possibly the individual themselves, drilled into a decayed tooth. If correct, this would represent the oldest known case of intentional dental treatment.

The lower molar, which belonged to an adult Neanderthal, was first discovered in 2016. At the time, researchers could not determine what had caused the deep hole on its surface. But a study published on May 13, 2026, in PLOS ONE suggests that experimental evidence points to the use of a small stone drill to remove badly decayed tooth tissue.

The procedure appears to have been complex. It indicates that Neanderthals, our closest extinct human relatives who lived roughly between 400,000 and 40,000 years ago, may have understood that a painful cavity could be treated. It also suggests they had the fine motor control needed to carry out such a delicate operation.

John W. Olsen, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Arizona, said the fact that such an invasive treatment was performed, and that the individual survived afterward, is another sign of how advanced Neanderthals were in their understanding of the human body and when medical intervention was necessary.

It remains unclear whether the procedure was self-administered or carried out by another Neanderthal. Gregorio Oxilia, an associate professor of human anatomy at the Free Mediterranean University in Italy, said the discovery suggests that the roots of invasive medicine and surgery were not unique to Homo sapiens. Instead, they may belong to a broader legacy shared with our closest relatives.

Before this discovery, the earliest known evidence for Homo sapiens treating tooth decay came from present-day Italy and dated to around 14,000 years ago. This new find pushes the history of intentional dentistry back by roughly 45,000 years. Oxilia said it significantly changes how researchers understand the evolution of health care among humans and their relatives.

Several examples of Neanderthal care are already known. At archaeological sites in Spain, for instance, researchers have found evidence that Neanderthals cared for a child with Down syndrome and consumed medicinal plants.

However, direct evidence for Neanderthal dental treatment has remained limited. One reason is that their generally low-carbohydrate diet likely kept rates of tooth decay relatively low.

To determine whether the unusual hole in the roughly 59,000-year-old Neanderthal molar from Chagyrskaya Cave was intentionally made by human hands, researchers examined the tooth and then carried out experiments using three modern human teeth.

Microscopic analysis of the Neanderthal molar revealed two deep areas of demineralization, both consistent with severe dental decay. One decayed area was located where the tooth met the gumline. In this region, researchers identified smooth grooves typical of tooth-picking behavior.

The second decayed area corresponded with a cavity on the tooth surface measuring 4.2 millimeters long, 2.8 millimeters wide and 2.6 millimeters deep. Tiny marks were also visible along the upper edge of the hole.

The research team then tested what kinds of tools and movements could have produced similar marks on modern teeth. Their experiments showed that the grooves could have been made by twisting small stone tools produced from locally available jasper. Archaeologists had previously found numerous long, thin and pointed tools at Chagyrskaya Cave that could have served this purpose.

Olsen noted that chewing marks found over the grooves around the cavity indicate that the individual did not simply survive the procedure. They also lived long enough afterward for normal chewing activity to begin wearing away the original drilling marks.

Marina Lozano Ruiz, a bioarchaeologist at Rovira i Virgili University in Catalonia who studies Neanderthal teeth but was not involved in the research, said scientists cannot be absolutely certain that the hole was made with a stone dental drill. However, she explained that the highly localized nature of the marks makes this explanation more likely than alternatives, such as damage that occurred after the individual’s death.

Oxilia described the case as exceptional because it shows Neanderthals could respond to a rare dental problem with a highly focused and technically demanding intervention.

Rebecca Wragg Sykes, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and author of Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art, believes the treatment may have been self-performed. Although she was not involved in the study, Sykes said the individual probably did not need another person to scrape out the decayed tooth. Group members may have offered emotional support during the painful process, but evidence from other primates shows that individuals can sometimes survive serious conditions without direct assistance from their group.

Source: Live Science