The first race war? Scientists investigating after 13,000-year-old bodies are discovered on the edge of the Sahara

Skeletons from first human massacre will be displayed at British Museum

Remains from 11,000BC found in Jebel Sahaba cemetery in Sahara desert

Scientists say mass murder caused by 'environmental disaster' of Ice Age



At least 60 individuals found in excavation by American archaeologist



Humans remains of people killed 13,000 years ago in what scientists believe is the oldest identified race war, are today due to go on display at the British Museum in London.

Two skeletons from a massacre in the Sahara desert in 11,000BC, which killed at least 26 people, will be shown in the new Ancient Egypt gallery, alongside the flint-tipped weapons with which they were killed.



French scientists have been working with the museum to examine dozens of skeletons that were found grouped together in the Jebel Sahaba cemetery - one of the earliest organised burial grounds - on the east bank of the Nile, northern Sudan, in the 1960s.



A pair of skeletons belonging to people who were killed on a massacre 13,000 years ago as the result of climate change, are going on show in the British Museum, London. Pencils pinpoint out pieces of weaponry responsible for their demise

THE DISCOVERY AT JEBEL SAHABA CEMETERY The cemetery was discovered in 1965. It contained at least 61 individuals dating back about 13,000 years ago.

The graveyard is one of the earliest formal cemeteries in the world.

Prior to the discovery, only isolated graves, or clusters of up to three bodies had been known within the Nile Valley, experts at the British Museum write in a blog post. Out of the 61 skeletons found buried at the site, at least 45 per cent of them died from inflicted wounds.

The remains are the earliest evidence for inter-communal violence in the archaeological record.

Fragments of arrows and weapons were found alongside the bodies – with some weapons embedded in the bones. Cut marks were also found on the bones.

They believe the remains of the 60 individuals found - around half of which had cut marks on their bones - represent the first communal violence between groups.

Fighting probably broke out because of the environmental disaster of the Ice Age, which caused the attackers and victims to live together in a smaller area, the experts explained.



Renee Friedman, the museum's curator of early Egypt, told The Times that the attackers and victims were hunter-gatherers who usually avoided violence by moving on when a certain area became overcrowded.

But she believed that the cold and dry conditions of the Nile valley around that time caused a 'population crisis', as more people moved to the same area surrounded by desert.

She said: 'Things were probably very tight, so we think that people started picking on one another.'

The museum acquired the remains in 2002 when they were donated by Fred Wendorf, an American archaeologist who excavated the site in the 1960s.

At least 60 individuals were found and examined using modern technology. One body was found with 39 pieces of flint from arrows and other flint-tipped weapons, Dr Friedman said.

French scientists have been working with The British Museum to examine dozens of skeletons that were found grouped together in the Jebel Sahaba cemetery. An image of excavations at Jebel Sahaba in 1965 is pictured

The cemetery was discovered in 1965. It contained at least 61 individuals dating back about 13,000 years ago. The graveyard (illustrated showing the position in which the skeletons were found,) is one of the earliest formal cemeteries in the world

They believe the remains of the 60 individuals found (a skull is pictured) represent the first communal violence between groups because almost half the remains have cut marks on them

WHY DID FIGHTING BEGIN? Experts think that climate change sparked the violence.

Ice Age glaciers covering much of Europe and North America at this time made the climate in Egypt and Sudan cold and arid, forcing people to live near the Nile.

But the river was either wild or low and sluggish. There was little land on which people to live safely and resources were scarce.

Competition for food may have been the reason for the violence as more groups of people had to stake a claim on the best fishing spots and sites to live.

Two other cemeteries found nearby the main site suggest other social units, or small tribes, also considered the area their home and this may have caused friction.

But the remains buried in the other graveyards show no signs of violence. So people buried in ‘Cemetery 117’ were either unlucky, or the resting place was chosen for people who dies of battle wounds.

As well as the human remains, the display will include flint arrowhead fragments and a healed forearm fracture, which was most likely sustained by a victim who was trying to defend himself during conflict.

Over the past two years, anthropologists from Bordeaux University have managed to find dozens of previously undetected conflict marks on the victims' bones.

The British Museum scientists are now planning to research more about the victims themselves, including their gender, their age and their diet.

Meanwhile, according to The Independent, work carried out at Liverpool John Moores University, the University of Alaska and New Orleans’ Tulane University suggests these humans were part of the general sub-Saharan originating population, who were ancestors of modern Black Africans.

Dr. Daniel Antoine, a curator in the British Museum’s Ancient Egypt and Sudan Department, told the paper: 'The skeletal material is of great importance – not only because of the evidence for conflict, but also because the Jebel Sahaba cemetery is the oldest discovered in the Nile valley so far.'



The cemetery where the remains were discovered in the 1960s is one of the earliest organised burial grounds in the world and lies on the east bank of the Nile, northern Sudan (marked)

Human remains from the first known human massacre which scientists believe was carried out in 11,000BC during the Ice Age are due to go on display today for the first time at the British Museum in Londond