More than 20 pairs of sandals were discovered in an ancient burial site in a cave in Spain, as well as various wooden tools and some of the oldest preserved basketry in Europe.
Plant-based materials have been used by humans to make tools, clothing, and other objects for thousands of years, but due to their perishable nature, most of these ancient crafts have been destroyed over time. It will disassemble. However, a few carefully selected locations around the world offer the unique conditions necessary to preserve these organic artifacts, offering a glimpse into the lives and culture of our ancient ancestors. can.
One such place is the Murciélagos Caves in Albuñol, on the coast of Granada, Spain. The name literally means “bat cave” and was first rediscovered in the early 1830s by local landowners who found a cave filled with guano and thought it was filled with gold. In the 1850s, miners descended on the site in search of lead. That’s when they discovered a hidden inner cave filled with several partially mummified corpses and archaeological remains.
Almost two centuries later, scientists have used modern dating techniques to roughly determine when these objects were made and who made them.Their results were published in the journal scientific progress September 27th.
“We researched the raw materials and the technology, we did carbon-14 dating, and we found that [of objects] “It dates back to the early to mid-Holocene, between 9,500 and 6,200 years ago,” said study lead author Francisco Martínez Sevilla of the University of Alcalá. newsweek.
“This is direct evidence of basketry made by Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies in southern Europe, as well as other organic tools associated with early Neolithic agricultural societies, such as sandals and wooden maces. “It’s a unique set,” he said.
Previous research had dated all the objects to the Neolithic period, also known as the Neolithic period, which lasted from 7,000 BC to 1,700 BC. This era was characterized by a more sedentary human lifestyle, with people growing plants and domesticating animals to obtain food rather than relying on hunting and gathering. But this new research shows that some of the earliest objects, including the set of baskets, were most likely made several centuries earlier, during the Mesolithic or Mesolithic period.
“New dating of esparto baskets from the Murciélagos cave in Albuñol opens a window of opportunity to understand the last hunter-gatherer societies of the early Holocene,” said Martínez-Sevilla.
“The quality and technical complexity of the basketry challenges the simple assumptions we have about human communities before the arrival of agriculture in southern Europe. We are positioning the Murciélagos Cave as a unique site in Europe.”Europe plans to study the organic material of prehistoric people. ”
However, many questions still remain about who made these items and whether they had a role in the ancient funerary customs of the time. For example, some sandals have obvious signs of wear, others look like they were never used, and some people were buried wearing specific clothing for the afterlife. suggests that it is possible.
“Honestly, there are more questions than conclusions,” Martinez-Sevilla said. “There is still much work to be done to understand how caves were used and how prehistoric human communities lived.”