"The new findings from the Jarigole site resolve long-standing questions about eastern Africa’s earliest monuments and provide insight into the social lives, and deaths, of the region’s first pastoralists," says the study published in Cambridge University's Antiquity Journal.
"Our findings demonstrate that Jarigole’s construction began with the excavation of a planned mortuary cavity and the building of a surrounding circular stone platform. This platform consists of a series of short, basalt cobble retaining walls with rubble filling the spaces between them," the study says, noting that personal adornments were buried along with their owners, one of whom was found with "more than 100 amazonite and other stone beads near their neck and chest, which were perhaps worn as a necklace."
"Jarigole no longer being an outlier is unsurprising, but it is a big deal. Numerous studies have referred to a 'Jarigole Mortuary Tradition' which, though not completely wrong, was based on incomplete data. The site was never formally published and the field notes are still MIA," she wrote, underlining that new findings help to shed light on the life of ancient Africans.
"In addition, we do not know whether funerals were large gatherings or smaller affairs, why individuals were interred in primary versus secondary burials or perhaps scattered in the mortuary fill,” says the paper.