52nd STORY WRITING COMPETITION. / Discovery!

Your story

During an excavation on land that has been shown to be related to ancient tribes dating back more than 3,000 years, which had been abandoned many years ago, some young archaeologists took up the project. During an exploration in the southern part of the area, they found a skeleton, which seemed not as old as what has been found so far.
They remember that the Archaeologist who preceded them had simply disappeared. After taking some samples of the bones and delimiting the area of ​​the discovery, they determined that it was outside the context of the excavation, which indicated that it did not belong to the same period, that was when they realized...

Now it's my turn to tell you what the story will be.

My story

When our young archaeologists Antonio, Jessica, and Mark reached the site today, they knew very well that one of the archaeologists who came before them had disappeared from this particular point. So this young team did not want to take any risk also they soon found out that an insufficient number of archaeological surveys had been conducted on this civilization, and a lot more was needed to be done.

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When they began their investigation, they discovered that this particular site was actually one of the largest cities of the Monaris civilization, and where the body of the archeologist was found, there was a cemetery at that location. But they found nothing about this cemetery in the reports of previous investigators. Probably they had not yet examined most of the burials within the cemetery there.

The young team had reports that during the last three seasons, archaeologists had not even carried out excavations in an attempt to correct the deficiency. So, when Jessica advised them to dig deeper inside this cemetery, they were not surprised when they found different types of graves in different proportions.

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They found graves with primary burials, which were the most common, followed by secondary, symbolic, and empty graves, which were never used. In the first category, unusual funerals appear to have been elaborately prepared. This attracted the attention of those young explorers.

Because of the reports they had, they felt it was necessary to reconsider their preconceptions, at least in the context of the Monaris civilization. The data presented in previous reports, although a full understanding of the cemeteries of this civilization was inadequate, found a piece of new and important information on mortuary practices and anthropological characteristics of that time, which was unusual and did not match with that time period.

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The range of different types of burials in the cemetery was indicative of the differences in mortuary rituals seen within Monaris societies and provided them with a vivid glimpse of how these people honored their dead. But they were still thinking about what the reason was for the death of the archaeologist who came before them.

Then Antonio remembered that earlier this year, he had read a report that claimed they had found 2600-year-old remains in the ruins of Monlica. They claimed that the mark was left by someone who belonged to the hominin and dismembered limbs to eat the marrow.

Jessica felt that if this claim was investigated, it would be the oldest sign of this Monalis community. Jessica found a cutting tool in a field about 1.5 kilometres away from there. The team felt encouraged and visited the site again, collecting many fossils, quartzite cobbles, and flakes.

One of them picked up a fossilized bone with distinctive markings on it. It belonged to the family of mammals, which includes camels and buffaloes. The cut marks resembled those made by butchers. This was a turning point.

Was this the place our archaeologist visited first and butchered here?

But the existence of a hominin 2600–3000 years ago was something very strange because that was the hominin pre-historical claim. The three young archaeologists thought that this even raised doubts, especially given the context in which the cut bones and stone tools were found. They did not look 2600 years old. They ordered deep digging, but that rough and rockey surface was not easy to dig.

To find the best location to dig, the team first had to understand the character of the rock layers and the erosion process. Then he chose the best areas to start excavation again.

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Then, when they found some more evidence, Jessica said, I am not a bioarchaeologist, but I know that these marks on the body of our scientist were made by stone tools, not by natural methods.

Antonio said that when animals are trampled, they can leave marks on the bones that actually look like marks made by stone tools. So it is possible that your theory is wrong.

Mark, who had been silent for a long time, said, "It's absolutely possible. I think it's entirely possible, it depends on how you define hominin. As long as we're looking at that possibility." "Continuing to think, we can't ignore the evidence just because hominins may have arrived 2-3 million years ago."

Jessica looked at him and said, "There isn't enough evidence to say so. So my feeling is that even though there isn't much evidence for the origin of Homo, we still have to keep that possibility in mind."

Antonio was looking at the bones, and at last he broke his silence- "The difficulty with paleoanthropology and paleontology is that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because there is no evidence of Homo habilis does not mean that Homo habilis was not there."

The archaeologist trio kept records of all their findings and left the site to come back next week until they finished their lab tests on their findings.

I invite @tenguhatanga @ikwal and @bossj23 to participate in this fiction contest.