Rare skeleton found in Egypt’s Nile Valley

Press, 7 May 1983, Page 18

Rare skeleton found in Egypt’s Nile Valley

A 60,000 to 80,000-year-old human skeleton, found in a desolate region of Egypt’s Western Desert, was brought on April 4 to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., for study. The skeleton — believed to be that of a Neanderthal — is being studied in a co-operative scientific project funded by the National Science Foundation (N.S.F.), the National Geographic Society, and the Smithsonian institution. If studies confirm that the skeleton is indeed a Neanderthal, it will be one of few such specimens that has been found buried in the “open” rather than in a cave, and the first ever unearthed in Egypt. Neanderthals are a line of early hominids that disappeared about 45,000 years ago. Skeleton finds of Neanderthals are rare, with only some 150 recorded throughout the world. 1 ’’ The almost-complete skeleton, discovered last year and well preserved in a block of sandstone, arrived in Washington accompanied by Mohammad Mohsen, an official of the Egyptian Antiquities Organisation. Dr T. Dale Stewart, physical anthropologist emeritus at the National Museum of Natural History and an authority on Neanderthals, is undertaking the delicate task of freeing the bones of the skeleton from the sandstone — a \ project that requires special tools The Cody was apparently buried in a grave face down, arms extended on the side and legs tightly flexed and drawn up underneath. Then jjt was covered with loosqtf fill of sand and gravel Later, .the

grave contents became solidij fied. Dr Fred Wendorf of Southern Methodist University, who has been doing archaeological work in the Nile Valley with N.S.F. support, accidently discovered the buried skeleton in early 1982 at Wadi Kubbaniya, in the Nile Valley on the west side of the river just below the Aswan Dam. This is an area where ancient human artefacts have been turning up for more than a century. Dr Wendorf has been working at Wadi Kubbaniya — in collaboration with the Polish Academy of Science and the Geological Survey of Egypt — on a project that focuses on early man’s switch from hunting and gathering to agriculture in this area about 18,500 years ago — 8500 years before the textbooks say agriculture began. This change, anthropologists have long felt, was the most profound in human history. In exploring the area, Dr Wendorf and his colleagues found evidence that humans had lived there from extremely ancient times, noting with interest that they were finding quite a few stone 'tools, similar to those that have been found with Neanderthals in other locales. They were surprised when they found a Neanderthal grave. Almost all of the recorded Neanderthal burials have been found in caves, not in . the open. Most Neanderthal skeletons have been ■ found in Europe and the Near East, but none had ever turned up before in Egypt . Dr- Wendorf was examining a strange butte-like formation onia terrace near the mouth of the Wadi

Kubbaniya, when he noticed fragments of a human skull and back vertebrae protruding out of the butte top. Erosion had cleared away the sand that had once surrounded and covered the grave, elevating it above the level of the terrace. To get the skeleton back to Cairo, the archaeologists sliced off the top of the formation, freeing a rectangular sandstone block — two feet long, a foot-and-a-half wide, and a foot high. The 60,000 to 80,000-year age estimate for the skeleton is based on Dr Wendorfs stratigraphic studies of Wadi Kubbaniya’s geological setting. The research at the Smithsonian, expected to take about a year, will determine if, as Dr Wendorf believes, the skeleton is a Neanderthal. A second possibility is that it represents a primitive member of the line that led to modern man. This would be equally interesting scientifically because there is a far greater scarcity of primitive modern humans — few, if any, have been reliably dated in the extremely ancient range of 60,00080,000 years. The skeleton will be returned to Egypt after the studies. Dr Stewart’s.experience included studies of one of the most famous Neanderthal finds of modern time, nine skeletons recovered in the 1950 s from Shanidar Cave in Iraq. While studying the Shanidar material Dr Stewart discovered a number of bony Neanderthal features in hip and shoulder bones and skull that are distinct from those in modern humans. If these features are found in the Wadi Kubbaniya skeleton they will be strong evidence that it is a true Neanderthal. ' .