...continued

We found the site during the 2000 Expedition to Niger. Just as we prepared to leave our most remote area in the Tenere, a team member spotted an unusual bony plate from the window of a Land Rover. This was not a plate from the now famous 40-foot long “SuperCroc,” or any of the other croc species we had found in the dinosaur beds. A few minutes later, we puzzled over the fossilized remains of a cow skull. Then we found an ear region of a human skull and pottery shards. We laid the evidence out on the hood of a truck. The minutes flew by as we began to sketch a picture of Neolithic life from the human fossils buried in ancient lake sediments overlying the dinosaur beds. At the beginning it was just fun for my dinosaur expedition. What happened next was electrifying.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno brushes off two skulls, possibly members of the same family, that are among the 130 skeletons mapped by the expedition team.
Photo © Joshua Miller

“That ain’t nothing,” called out the expedition’s photographer and fossil hound, Mike Hettwer, striding up to the truck. “Look at this. There’s a dozen human skeletons over there,” he said, thrusting his digital camera out. Complete skulls and skeletons lay half buried, some preserved white and others varnished black by the desert wind. I suddenly realized that I had always been somewhat detached from whatever I was digging up, no matter what emerged. I felt my skin crawl for the first time - this was Homo sapiens, my species, that lay fossilized. It was me I was brushing off!

French paleontologist Ronin Allain holds the heavy mortar
over a grindstone found at the site and used
to pulverize grain some 5000 years ago.
Photo © Paul Sereno

No question the site was important and needed professional attention, but there wasn’t time to do more in 2000. The team left the Tenere thinking the site would yield a great set of tools and perhaps a dozen skeletons—the best view yet of Neolithic Niger. We just needed to find professional archeological expertise to take it on.

Enter the 2003 Expedition to Niger. I figured we would make a site map and collect the most fragile artifacts. Little did we know the site’s extent: all of the clues needed to reconstruct a detailed story about the lives of the Tenere people--their ailments, cuisine, jewelry, hunting and farming techniques, and even their domesticated animals.

Taking a closer look at a spearhead, University of Chicago graduate student Josh Miller is amazed
at the delicate craftsmanship.
Photo © Luke Mahler

The location of the site is secret. Our search is on for an archeological team to join Niger’s Neolithic experts. In the meantime, I find myself wanting to become an archeologist!

Read more about the team's archeological finds in Gabrielle Lyon's interview with Jeff Stivers.