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<< Text Pages >> Gobero - Barrow Cemetery in Niger

Submitted by bat400 on Tuesday, 30 September 2008  Page Views: 5880

Neolithic and Bronze AgeSite Name: Gobero
Country: Niger
NOTE: This site is 442.064 km away from the location you searched for.

Type: Barrow Cemetery

Latitude: 16.790000N  Longitude: 8.760000E
Condition:
5Perfect
4Almost Perfect
3Reasonable but with some damage
2Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site
1Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks
0No data.
-1Completely destroyed
no data Ambience:
5Superb
4Good
3Ordinary
2Not Good
1Awful
0No data.
no data Access:
5Can be driven to, probably with disabled access
4Short walk on a footpath
3Requiring a bit more of a walk
2A long walk
1In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find
0No data.
no data Accuracy:
5co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates
4co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map
3co-ordinates scaled from a bad map
2co-ordinates of the nearest village
1co-ordinates of the nearest town
0no data
3
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Barrow Cemetery in northern Niger.
A stone age Saharan cemetery, with common use by two different cultures, separated by a thousand or more years. Burials include both bone bundle burials and touching displays of groups of death buried together, with simple burial objects or on beds of flowers.

The second of the two groups, called the Tenerian (5200 - 2500 BC) buried their dead among the dead of the older culture, called the Kiffian (7700 - 6200 BC) but did not displace or discard the earlier remains.
The Gobero cemetery was discovered in 2000 by National Geographic explorer-in-residence Paul Sereno. Traveling in Niger to continue research on dinosaurs, his group found the human remains eroding out of the ground. Excavations have continued as the site continues to be uncovered by the wind.
The cemetery once stood along a large lake, dating from the era of the "Green Sahara". Finds of animal bones dating to the Tenerian and Kiffian cultures include many fish, snakes, aquatic birds, and hippos. Satellite radar and other special photography show the traces of ancient lake beds and watercourses under the desert sand. Sereno's research paper with photos and charts can be found at PLoS ONE. The site was also featured in the September 2008 issue of National Geographic. The location given for the site is very general for the site. The country listing will be updated to Niger presently.

Note: Two cultures share oldest planned cemetery in the Sahara. "Green Sahara" finds.
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"Gobero" | Login/Create an Account | 2 News and Comments
  
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Ancient Cemetery Found; Brings by bat400 on Tuesday, 30 September 2008
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From National Geographic News:

"The "watershed" find also offers a new window into how these tribes lived and buried their dead during the extreme Holocene period, when a grassy Sahara dried up in the world's largest desert.

A wobble in Earth's orbit—along with other environmental factors that occurred about 12,000 years ago—brought intense monsoons to the Sahara, greening the desert and attracting a wave of human inhabitants, according to Sereno and colleagues.

Scientists already knew that the hunter-gatherer Kiffian occupied the region during a temperate phase. Between 6200 and 5200 B.C., one of the most severe climatic fluxes in that period's history desiccated the land and forced people out, the authors say. Soon afterward a second group arrived, the Tenerian.

But evidence of such population shifts rested largely on tool artifacts, with few human skeletons to analyze—until now. Radiocarbon dating of the bones has provided an "outstanding record" of the ancient Saharans, Sereno said.

"We have the Green Sahara written in those sand dunes, and the people who lived in it," he added."

For more, see this link, including a short video and photographs from the September 2008 magazine article.
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Ancient Saharan Cemetery Yields Lost History by bat400 on Tuesday, 30 September 2008
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Originally submitted by coldrum --

A tiny woman and two children were laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5,000 years ago in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.
The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilizations who lived there, 1,000 years apart, when the region was moist and green.

Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find, detailed at a news conference Thursday.

"Part of discovery is finding things that you least expect," he said. "When you come across something like that in the middle of the desert it sends a tingle down your spine."

Some 200 graves of humans were found during fieldwork at the site in 2005 and 2006, as well as remains of animals, large fish and crocodiles.
"Everywhere you turned, there were bones belonging to animals that don't live in the desert," said Sereno. "I realized we were in the green Sahara."


The first group, known as the Kiffian, hunted wild animals and speared huge perch with harpoons. They colonized the region when the Sahara was at its wettest, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago.
The researchers said the Kiffians were tall, sometimes reaching well over 6 feet.

The second group lived in the region between 7,000 and 4,500 years ago. The Tenerians were smaller and had a mixed economy of hunting, fishing and cattle herding.


For more, see Discovery.
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