Prehistoric sites of Buia: From the Archives of the National Museum of Eritrea

(By Tsegai Medhin) The numerous sites of Buia have revealed incredible findings of paleontological and archaeological significance. The sites are thought to form the most concentrated and extensive prehistoric locality for the one-million-year-old chronology anywhere in the world.

The National Museum of Eritrea houses among its collections fossils of human remains including an almost complete cranium, pelvis, two incisors and a recently discovered pubic symphysis. In addition to this, rich paleontological collection that reveals the evolutionary history of reptiles and large mammals is on display.
 
In the human findings, it is clear that the cranium bears a mosaic of characters typical of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens. This is evident in the low cranial height, shape of the cranium in profile view, and expanded parietals and face. The right innominate depicts a morphology (greater sciatic notch) usually associated with female individual. The two incisors are highly abraded that they are attributed to an adult individual. Given their location of discovery and the estimated age at death of the individual, it seems that the cranium, the innominate and the two incisors belong to a female adult individual.
 
The one-million-year-old Buia cranium fills a gap between the early African Homo erectus (2.2 -1.4 myr) and the later African Homo hiedelbergensis (0.65 myr). The utter lack of complete fossil findings belonging to this period of our evolutionary history makes the Buia findings extremely significant.
 
In 2003 experts from the National Museum of Eritrea, the University of Florence and the Pigorini Museum (Italy) discovered a pubic symphysis of presumably male individual in the site of previous discoveries. Consequently, it is known that the site has yielded the remains of at least two individuals.
 
Also from Buia come fossil remains belonging to relatives of modern elephants, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, water buk, giraffe and crocodiles. Study on these rich fauna is continuing and amazing results have been obtained so far.
 
Another uniqueness of the sites located in Buia is the existence of large number of artifacts. Archaeologists have noted the density and variability of these artifacts as being some of the most interesting findings in the African continent.
 
It is worth noting that the area studied so far is a small part of the Denakil Depression and there are extensive areas with the potential to put Eritrea in its rightful place paleontologically.

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