Overview
- The Hora 1 pyre in northern Malawi dates to about 9,500 years ago and is reported as the world's oldest known in situ cremation of an adult.
- About 170 highly fragmented bones identify the individual as a small adult woman, with evidence she was cremated shortly after death.
- Sediment and bone studies indicate a tended blaze exceeding 500°C that consumed roughly 30 kilograms of wood and grasses, signaling organized communal effort.
- Cut marks on some limbs and the absence of skull and teeth lead researchers to hypothesize pre‑burn removal and other ritual manipulations rather than violence.
- The shelter preserves large fires from centuries before and repeated burnings for centuries after the cremation, and the study in Science Advances situates the find between an 11,500‑year‑old child pyre in Alaska and much later African cremations.