Half-million-year-old treasure from another human species discovered in Poland

The most precious objects of another human species along with many extinct animal bones were excavated from the Tunel Wielki cave , an unparalleled treasure.

A new study has helped uncover the shocking true value of what archaeologists found in Poland's Tunel Wielki cave in 2018.

Tunel Wielki Cave - (Photo: Miron Bogacki).

According to Heritage Daily, when it was first discovered, the rich collection of artifacts consisting of about 40 pieces of flint including food processing tools and by-products of flint tool making, countless animal bones of various species. was assessed as being of very high value, dating back about 40,000 years.

But new research led by Dr Malgorzata Kot from the Department of Archaeology at the University of Warsaw - Poland has made the discovery even more valuable by confirming that the treasure is up to 440,000-550,000 years old.

This makes sense in several ways:

First , this extraordinary dating confirms that the rich collection of animal remains—including a wolf, a cave bear, a cave lion, and more—in the ruins belonged to extremely ancient, extinct ancestors of similar species today. Most of the animal bones appear to be natural remains, not processed ones, despite dying next to the flint tools, so scientists believe that they just happened to live at the same time as the cave's occupants, and were trapped in the same layer of sediment.

Second , it certainly cannot belong to our species - Homo sapiens have existed on earth for just over 300,000 years.

Thus, the most valuable artifacts of the ancient cavemen, the exquisite flint tools, have also become invaluable relics from another extinct human species. It is still unclear who they were or what species they belonged to.

Scientists believe they were most likely Homo heidelbergensis , the same genus Homo as us, on the same branch of the family tree as both us and the European Neanderthals. The clearest evidence of them dates back to around 600,000 to 400,000 years ago.

Thus, the discoveries in Tunel Wielki cave naturally become the oldest human remains ever recorded in Poland, promising to open up countless anthropological and paleontological studies.