Marks on 4,000-year-old skeletons reveal that Bronze Age women in Nubia were carrying goods and young children on their heads using tumplines, a type of head strap that can hold a basket, a new study finds. The discovery reveals the oldest known use of head straps in the world.
Researchers made the finding in Sudan after analzying the remains of 30 people (14 females and 16 males) buried in a Nubian Bronze Age cemetery. One, an elite woman who was around 50 years old when she died, had the clearest marks indicative of head straps.
