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14 · SENSITIVE EVIDENCE · ANCIENT DNA

Shum Laka

The four children buried at Shum Laka

Their remains allow us to investigate the ancient population of the region without attributing to them a language we do not know.

Museum documentation · free public access, no account required.

EDITORIAL VISUALISATION DECLARED · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Editorial visualisation · Contextual correspondence

Declared editorial visualisation, based on the cartography and sources of the fact sheet; it is not an exact historical frontier.

Stratigraphic section of Shum Laka with four abstract sample icons and their dates
EDITORIAL VISUALISATION DECLARED · AI-GENERATED IMAGE · TRACEKEEPERS

Editorial visualisation · Contextual correspondence

Declared editorial visualisation, based on the cartography and sources of the fact sheet; it is not an exact historical frontier.

History and context

Four children were buried at Shum Laka in two periods, around eight thousand and three thousand years ago.

Their genomes are related to those of west-central African hunter-gatherers and require site, language and ancestry to be considered separately.

Evidence and interpretation

Authenticated DNA and dates for four individuals. The sample is too small to represent the entire regional population.

Catalogue facts

Narrative date
c. 8,000 and 3,000 years before present
Location
Shum Laka, Cameroon Grassfields
Material
Burial context, human remains and genomic data
Context
The distinction between geographical proximity and ancestry
Curatorial reading
The documented fact and its interpretation appear separately in the evidence block.
Dossier axis
treasures
Research record
BANTU · bantu-treasure-shum-laka
Documentary coverage
2 museum, heritage, primary corpus or research sources for this stop.

A SHARED TOPIC, DIFFERENT MOMENTS

Objects connected through time

Follow a topic across the collections. A shared tag is a way to compare objects, not proof that one culture influenced another.

The order uses the midpoint of each approximate date range; ranges can overlap. Spacing does not represent elapsed time. Swipe, scroll or use the arrows. With the sequence focused, use ← / →, Home or End.

THE CURRENT OBJECT

Its date is not sufficiently established to place it on the timeline. We keep it here, separate from the dated objects.

Human remains and bioarchaeology3 dated objects

1 / 3In the centre: Cemetery R-37

Also connected, without a comparable date (2)

These objects are not placed after the others: an unknown date does not mean a more recent object.

A closer look

About 1 min to read · 1 section. Further reading and sources · free access. Editorial review recorded: .

A cemetery of family relationships

The kinship analysis of the 2020 study found fourth-degree affinity between the two oldest individuals and second-degree between the two most recent. For the latter, the data allow possibilities such as half-siblings or an uncle/aunt with nephew/niece relationship, without selecting a single one. Researchers compared shared chromosomal segments to support the archaeological hypothesis of a cemetery of extended families. This scale of relationship between people complements the continental map: the burials also document local links, not only broad ancestry categories.

Sources and references

Expand this information and consult its sources

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