They found a huge pile of human and animal bones in an ancient cave in Saudi Arabia

An ancient cave in northern Saudi Arabia has recently been discovered and inside a mountain of human and animal remains in what seems to be gruesome proof of the past meals of ancient hyenas.

Hyenas often rummage through their food, so they likely did not kill their human prey, but instead dug up the carcasses from nearby graves and devoured them in this underground lair, the scientists who made the discovery reported.

The site is a cave formed by petrified volcanic lava that was known as the “Wolf Lair” because it was previously suspected that these animals were responsible for the vast collection of bones that were inside.

However, reanalysis of bone piles, coprolites (preserved faeces), and individual bones told a different story. Scientists now suspect the den belonged to striped hyenas who had been feeding on a variety of animals, including humans, there for at least 4,500 to just 150 years.

Lava caves are underground passages carved by rivers of lava that can reach temperatures above 1,090 degrees Celsius. When lava flows are trapped in basins by rock walls, they can heat up and start to eat away at the crust below, creating underground channels and networks. Once the flows slow down or are diverted, the tunnels that do occur can extend up to 40 miles and be several tens of meters wide.

For the new study, the researchers analyzed the Umm Jirsan lava tube in Saudi Arabia, the longest such network in the country. Umm Jirsan is approximately 1,500 meters long, with a passage height of approximately 8 to 12 meters.

Scientists focused on the western passage of the lava tube, which contained “An accumulation of extremely dense bone”.

They examined over 1,900 bones, identifying 40 individual creatures. Most of the bones were from donkeys, followed by goats, a type of goat, gazelles, camels, and wolves or dogs. Scientists have identified two human skull fragments there, “and several other human bones have been found elsewhere in the Umm Jirsan system.”

Other sites in other parts of the Middle East and Africa contain similar bone accumulations believed to span thousands of years, but the data from these places is not as complete as Umm Jirsan’s evidence, raising questions about how long these lairs will actually be used, said study lead author Mathew Stewart, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Archeology at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History at Jena, Germany.

“Striped hyenas are the most likely bone accumulator in Umm Jirsan”, dijo Stewart al Live Science portal.

But even if these hyenas ate human flesh, that doesn’t necessarily mean they were hunting people, Stewart added.

“Although predation by humans is possible and some cases of predation by modern humans have been observed, human remains at Umm Jirsan are likely due to the striped hyena that cleans human graves,” he said. he adds. said Stewart.

In addition to providing insight into the habits of hyenas spanning thousands of years, Umm Jirsan also preserves a broader insight into the biodiversity in a region. “Where the conservation of bones and fossils is exceptionally poor”, said Stewart.

“Sites like these may contain potential clues for understanding the environments and ecologies of the past in arid regions like Arabia,” added.

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