With support from the University of Richmond

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5000-year-old cemetery found in Sahara

Skeletons of a tiny woman and two children laid to rest on a bed of flowers 5000 years ago have been found in what is now the barren Sahara Desert.

The slender arms of the youngsters were still extended to the woman in perpetual embrace when researchers discovered their skeletons in a remarkable cemetery that is providing clues to two civilisations who lived there, a thousand years apart, when the region was moist and green.

Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago and colleagues were searching for the remains of dinosaurs in the African country of Niger when they came across the startling find, detailed at a news conference yesterday at the National Geographic Society.

Read entire article at New Zealand Herald