Archaeologists Dig a Fossil of Mother Cradling a Baby
It can't get more heartbreaking than this – a mother cradling her baby in what experts are saying is a mass grave that's about 4,800 years old. The human fossil was unearthed in Taiwan and is part of 48 other sets of remains that prove that there already was a community of humans in the area in and near Taichung at that time.
The discovery was announced by the country's National Museum of Natural Science.
It definitely is a chilling and shocking find, even for archaeologists who have spent most of their lives digging human remains in the earliest history. It is not every day that they stumble upon a find like this, especially if one thinks how the mother didn't want to let go of her child at a certain point when death was inevitable.
According to Reuters, which first reported the find, the excavation project actually began almost two years ago and was finished a year after. Similar to other human fossil discoveries, this one was dated using carbon dating technology.
Aside from the infant who died in the arms of her mother, the same mass grave also reportedly contained the remains of five children and/or adolescents. But nothing is more surprising and remarkable than the fact that the mother was looking down at her child as if trying to comfort it for what's about to happen to them.
If there's one thing that is to learn from this very rare archaeological find, it is that the love of a mother to a child is as old as any other form of human instinct.
Recent Digs Also Contained Surprises
Per Fox News, there were also a few notable archaeological discoveries from other parts of the world that stirred some intrigue and surprises, including another mass grave near Athens and the emergence of a theory that Ramesses III might have been murdered by several people and not just one, based on the examination of the mummy by a radiologist.