The oldest hominid bones found in Poland belonged to a Neanderthal child whose fingers were chewed by a giant bird



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A team of archaeologists has revealed new discoveries on a set of bones that would belong to the oldest fossil hominids of Poland.

The discovery was made in the Jaskinia Ciemna cave in the Malopolska region of southern Poland, where researchers found finger bones belonging to a Neanderthal child who lived about 115,000 years ago. according to theFirst newsThis makes the bones more than twice as old as those of the oldest recognized hominid in the area. Before the discovery, the oldest remains of Neanderthal were 52,000 to 54,000 years old.

The researchers believe that the Neanderthal child whose remains were found was between 5 and 7 years old at the time of his death and could have been killed by an animal, possibly a large raptor who attacked the child and chewed on his hand after his death. Paweł Valde-Nowak, a professor at Krakow's Jagiellonian University, explained that human remains were discovered several years ago when archaeologists explored an area several meters below the ground of the current cave. and found mixed hominid bones from other animals.

Although the origins of the bones are not immediately clear, it took years of "detailed analysis" before the researchers determined that the remains actually belonged to a Neanderthal fossil. As indicated by The first newsThe Neanderthal stone tools found nearby on the cave site were also used.

Although the 115,000-year-old bones discovered in Poland are the oldest ever found in the country, the remains are relatively new compared to a set of fossils found in Morocco and considered the oldest hominid bones ever discovered. According to AtlanticIn 2017, a multinational team of researchers concluded that the bones and stone tools found in Djebel Irhoud, a cave located about 60km west of Marrakech, could be about 315,000 years old.

Phillipp Gunz, scientist of the Max Planck Institute for Anthropology of Evolution, said at the Atlantic discovery of his team at Jebel Irhoud was a sign that Homo sapiens could have existed much earlier than we had thought before.

Meanwhile, the First news noted that there may be previous examples of hominid bones in Poland, such as Homo sapiens"Close relatives probably arrived in the country about 300 000 years ago, or about the same time they landed for the first time on European soil in general. The publication added that these hominids lived in southern Poland at a time during the ice age, when glaciers covered most of the country.

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