Cemetery 117
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Cemetery 117 is an ancient cemetery discovered in 1964 by a team lead by Fred Wendorf near the northern border of Sudan. The remains discovered there were determined to be between approximately 13,140 and 14,340 years old.
The original project that discovered the cemetery was the UNESCO High Dam Salvage Project. This project was a direct response to the raising of the Aswan Dam which stood to destroy or damage many sites along its path. It is often cited as the oldest known evidence of warfare, although this point is disputed. The site comprises three cemeteries, two of which are called Jebel Sahaba, one on either side of the Nile river and the third cemetery being called Tushka.
59 bodies were recovered at Cemetery 117, and many more partial pieces found. There were twenty-four females and nineteen males all over nineteen years of age, thirteen children ranging in age from infancy to fifteen years old, and also three bodies that remain unaged and unsexed due to damage and missing pieces. The skeletons were dated using radiocarbon dating at 13,740 years before present plus or minus 600 years. Of the people buried in Jebel Sahaba about forty percent died of violent wounds. Stone projectile points were found in the bodies at places that suggest that they were attached to a spear or arrow. The wound sites were in the chest or abdomen area, the back, or in the skull through the lower jaw or neck. Also the lack of bony calluses due to healing around these wounds indicates that they were most likely fatal.
Some have speculated that this violence and aggression was due to diminishing resources in the area and the rising aridity of the land. Also the failure of earlier agricultural experiments may have led to this series of raiding and or ambush by other tribes or bands of people. This sudden decrease of population at the end of the Paleolithic is often seen as the effect of climate change which led to early agricultural failure and fewer food sources. This is why only about half as many sites as previous years in the Paleolithic have been found dating to the very end of the Paleolithic. Bands of people likely reverted back to a hunter-gatherer style of food procurement due to these changes in the climate and the waning populations.
The bodies and any other artifacts recovered by the UNESCO High Dam Salvage Project were recently donated by Fred Wendorf to the British Museum. This collection includes skeletal and fauna remains, lithics, pottery, and environmental samples as well as the full archive of Wendorf's notes, slides, and other material during the dig.
