Archaeologists studying 13,000-year-old human remains from the Mesolithic Era found at a burial site in Sudan have found proof of what may have been the world’s first race war.
Above: photo of two Jebel Sahaba skeletons, Wendorf Archive, British Museum
Ancient Human Remains May Be From World’s First “Race War”
Shmarya Rosenberg • FailedMessiah.com
Archaeologists studying 13,000-year-old human remains from the Mesolithic Era found at a burial site in Sudan have found proof of what may have been the world’s first race war, Ha’aretz reported.
The war took place as the area near the Nile River was changing into desert, which likely would have caused stronger competition for resources like food.
It also took place several thousand years before farming was invented and at a time when man lived on wild-gathered plants, fish, and trapped and hunted birds and animals. It was also several thousand years before any forms of writing had been invented and before the existence of large cities and towns.
The remains were found in 1964 by noted American Fred Wendorf, who postulated that this war between local blacks and invading Mediterraneans took place.
But now 50 years later, fresh study of the remains using high tech scanners and other cutting edge modern equipment has found much evidence to confirm Wendorf’s hypothesis – including evidence of many more injuries and traces of flint from arrowhead and spear wounds in the fossils.
The locals were tall but had relatively short torsos. They also had projecting features with broad noses and were black.
The invaders, who appear to have come from the edge of the Mediterranean Basin, were shorter, had longer torsos and flatter faces – and were lighter skinned.
The battles took place in Jebel Sahaba near the Nile.
The new analysis of the remains by scientists at Bordeaux University in France using modern scanning techniques found that many of people buried there – including women and children – show unhealed trauma caused by arrow injuries.
According to the British Museum, which holds Wendorf's archives, "of the 61 men, women and children buried at Jebel Sahaba, at least 45% of them died of inflicted wounds, making this the earliest evidence for inter-communal violence in the archaeological record. Chips and flakes of chert, the remnants of arrows or other weapons, were found mixed with and in some cases still embedded in the bones of 26 individuals, while cut marks were found on the bones of others."
And the cause of the war was likely climate change, the British Museum says.
"The reasons for all of this violence most likely comes down to climate. The Ice Age glaciers covering much of Europe and North America at this time made the climate in Egypt and Sudan cold and arid. The only place to go was to the Nile, but its regime was erratic: depending on the exact dating, the river was either high and wild, or low and sluggish. Either way, there was little viable land on which to live, and resources must have been scarce. Competition for food may well have been the reason for the conflict as more groups clustered around the best fishing and gathering grounds and were unwilling or unable to move away.…"
The Jebel Sahaba sites are arguably the oldest-known evidence of an actual war. They are also the earliest formal burial grounds yet found in the region.