Stone Age · Neolithic (not yet dated) · Serengeti National Park, Northern Tanzania, East Africa
First known human burials in Tanzania's Serengeti come from Neolithic herders
The same Polish-Tanzanian expedition found the fossil skull of an extinct giraffe that may be a new species, and worked at four Middle Stone Age sites.
News reports
Serengeti National Park, East Africa Archaeologists have found human remains at a settlement of Neolithic pastoralists in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park. Decades of earlier research in the Serengeti had not identified human burials or cemeteries from any period.
The remains number in the dozens and include many teeth. They come from several individuals. The find was made during the first season of a new Polish-Tanzanian project, which also recovered the fossil skull of an extinct giraffe.
The two-month expedition brought together the University of Wrocław and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. They worked with scientists from the University of Dar es Salaam. The project focuses on Middle Stone Age communities and on how early humans, animals and a changing environment interacted in East Africa.
The scale of the discoveries and the archaeological richness of the Serengeti completely surprised us.
Marta Osypińska, University of Wrocław, speaking to the Polish Press Agency (PAP)
Osypińska said knowledge of the region's archaeology has been relatively limited. One reason is that the traces left by its ancient inhabitants can be very hard to identify. "We must learn to recognise them," she said.
Teeth and bones from several people
The researchers hope the bones and teeth will show how these Neolithic herders treated their dead. Analysis may also reveal details of population history, migration, health and diet. No date for the settlement has been published yet.
Giraffe skull may be a new species
The giraffe find is a nearly complete fossilised skull and a radius bone from the Pleistocene, the geological epoch of the Ice Ages. The researchers think it could represent a species unknown to science. Further study is needed to establish what the animal was.
Osypińska is a zooarchaeologist. She said the Serengeti's high biodiversity and the similar shapes of bones from different species make identification hard. That makes it especially important to study bones while they are still in their original archaeological context.
More Middle Stone Age sites and possible ornaments
The team had planned to excavate two Middle Stone Age sites. It ended up carrying out rescue work at two more sites from the same period. According to the researchers, this raised the number of known Middle Stone Age sites in this part of Tanzania by around 300 per cent in one season.
They also worked on a large scale at Loiyangalani, which they describe as the only known Pleistocene archaeological site in this part of the Serengeti. Earlier projects often dug trenches of one metre by one metre. The Polish team opened areas of five by five metres, and in some cases ten by ten metres.
Osypińska said the method had proved useful in Egypt and Sudan. Larger areas can reveal hearths, pits and clusters of artefacts that are otherwise hard to recognise.
A previously unexplored site was named Kiboko, Swahili for "hippopotamus", after an encounter with a disgruntled hippo on the first day. It produced many stone artefacts and very well-preserved animal remains. Its layers also lie in a clear sequence, which lets archaeologists order human activity in time.
At Kiboko the team found possible evidence that Pleistocene people made objects from turtle shell for more than practical use. The researchers suspect some were ornaments. This has not yet been confirmed.
We will be able to study not only what our ancestors used in the Pleistocene, but also what they wanted to decorate their bodies with.
Marta Osypińska, University of Wrocław
The Serengeti lies several dozen kilometres from Olduvai Gorge, where evidence of hominin activity goes back more than two million years. Research led by John Bower around four decades ago, and by Audax Mabulla about 20 years ago, showed the Serengeti's potential. Relatively few projects have focused on it since.
The first season ran as two projects funded by Poland's National Science Centre. The Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute supports the work, which is carried out with Tanzania National Parks and the Frankfurt Zoological Society.
Material from the excavations has gone to laboratories in Europe and the United States. The team hopes the results will clarify the dates of the sites. Researchers plan to return to Tanzania in February 2027 to analyse stone artefacts and animal remains. Another field season in the Serengeti is planned for July.
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