Archaeologists have unearthed 20 Stone Age skeletons, dating between 8,000 and 4,200 years ago, around a rock shelter in Libya’s Sahara desert. The burials spanned thousands of years, suggesting the place was a persistent cemetery for the local people, researchers said. “It must have been a place of memory. People throughout time have kept it, and they have buried their people, over and over, generation after generation,” said study co-author Mary Anne Tafuri, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge.
About 15 women and children were buried in the rock shelter, while five men and juveniles were buried under giant stone heaps called tumuli outside the shelter during a later period, when the region turned to desert.
The findings suggest the culture changed with the climate.
From about 8,000 to 6,000 years ago, the Sahara desert region, called Wadi Takarkori, was filled with scrubby vegetation and seasonal green patches. Stunning rock art depicts ancient herding animals, such as cows, which require much more water to graze than the current environment could support, Tafuri said.