Archaeologists Unearth Stone Age Burial Ground

Stone Age relic

As you can see, some of the remains are around 10,000 years old.

US archaeologists have discovered the largest known burial ground of the Stone Age in the Sahara desert, in Niger, that besides human remains has also yielded fossils of huge crocodiles and dinosaurs, National Geographic magazine said.

Named Gobero, the archaeological site is an estimated 10,000 years old and located in Niger's part of the Sahara desert called Tenere.

It was stumbled upon by University of Chicago palaeontologist Paul Sereno as he searched the area for dinosaur fossils with his team.

So far, the desert sands have given up several fossil treasures including the complete skeleton of Sarcosuchus imperator, one of the biggest crocodiles that ever roamed the earth some 110 million years ago.

Sereno also unearthed the Nigersaurus, a plant-eating dinosaur with a huge jaw studded with 500 teeth that lived in the same geologic period, the Cretaceous.

Gobero holds evidence of two different human populations that lived in the area more than 1000 years apart. Exposed by the hot winds of the Sahara, human bones were found strewn about a wide area, the researchers said.

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