Prehistoric stone tools discovered in a cave in Poland fifty years ago were just identified as the oldest found in the area.
The tools found in the Tunel Wielki cave MałopolskaThey are between 450,000 to 550,000 years old. Scientists may be able to use this dating to discover more about the people who created them and their migrations and habitations in Central Europe over prehistory.
The time frame, for example, suggests that the tools were likely made by extinct human species Homo heidelbergensisUsually, it is the Last common ancestorThis is Neanderthalsand modern humans (us). It means that the area was inhabited at a time when Central Europe’s harsh climate required significant cultural and physical adjustment.
“This is an extremely interesting aspect of analyses for us,” archaeologist Małgorzata Kot of the University of Warsaw in Poland Science in Poland: Explained.
“We can see the limits of what survival means.” Homo heidelbergensisYou can see how he coped with these difficult conditions.
Tunel Wielki cave, which was discovered in 1960, was excavated by archaeologists who returned to the site in 2016. Layers of material dating to the Holocone were found to date back to 11,700 years ago. The Middle Paleolithic was found to be as far back as 40,000 years.
Claudio Berto, an archaeologist from the University of Warsaw believed that the dating was inconsistent with what he had been observing. He concluded that the bones of animals found at the site were probably older than 40,000 years.
Kot and her team went back to the cave in 2018. They extended and reopened one of the trenches. After carefully inspecting the various layers of material over the years, they collected more bone material to analyze.
The bones of animals who lived in the Late Pleistocene or the Holocene were found in the upper layers. However, the bottom layer was significantly older. It was home to bones from several species, including an European jaguar. Panthera gombaszoegensisThe Mosbach Wolf, the ancestor of modern gray wolves, Canis mosbachensis; and Deninger’s bear Ursus deningeri.
The bones were found under a layer of flint, which contained evidence that flint knapping had occurred, as well as flintflakes. These “blanks”, from which other tools could be made, can also be found in the bone layer. coresFrom which they are struck. You also have some finished tools like knives.
“Since these items came from the same layer that the bones, it indicates that they are very similar in their age.” Kot explained. Excavations in the cave confirmed this assumption in 2018. They confirmed the arrangement described by researchers half-a century earlier. We also found more animal bones and production waste.”
She said that previously, only two Polish sites had been identified with tools from the same time period. They were Trzebnica or Rusko. The Tunel Wielki cave artifacts, however, are quite different. Several archaeological sites in the area show evidence of ancient human habitation – but they are all open-air sites.
Kot says it is very unusual to find artifacts from this time period in a cave.
“We were shocked that half a billion years ago, people in this region stayed in caves because they were not the best places for camping.” She noted.
“Moisture, low temperatures and other factors would discourage this. Caves, on the contrary, are a natural shelter. A cave is a protected space that gives you a sense of safety. We found evidence that suggests that those who stayed there used fire to tame the dark and moist areas.
It was also fascinating to see the method used to knap the flint in the cave. This technique was the simplest that ancient humans used and was not used often as a primary method.
Only one other location, Isernia La Pineta (Italy), used the technique as its primary. It was both high quality and plentiful, as it was locally found. Isernia La Pineta also had this characteristic. Archaeologists may be able find another site with similar characteristics to help determine why ancient humans used this technique.
The team plans to next return to the cave in order to search for bones. Homo heidelbergensis.
The research was published in Scientific Reports.
