Archaeologists working at the foot of Mount Hora in northern Malawi have uncovered what appears to be the world’s oldest known cremation pyre containing adult human remains. Dating back approximately 9,500 years, this extraordinary find is challenging long-held assumptions about the social complexity and ritual practices of ancient African hunter-gatherer societies. The discovery, published in the journal Science Advances, provides unprecedented insight into the elaborate mortuary customs practiced by these early communities thousands of years before the advent of agriculture.

Until this discovery, the earliest confirmed intentional cremations in Africa dated back only about 3,500 years and were associated with pastoral Neolithic food-producing societies. The oldest previously known funeral pyre in the world was discovered in Alaska and dates to approximately 11,500 years ago, but that cremation involved a young child rather than an adult. Some burned human remains from Egypt date to around 7,500 years ago, but these show only incomplete burning with no evidence of an intentionally constructed pyre.