Holey cow! Evidence of Stone Age veterinary ‘surgery’

A hole in the skull of a Stone Age cow was likely made by humans about 5,000 years ago, probably by a primitive veterinarian or trainee surgeon, scientists said.

The hole appears to have been painstakingly carved into the animal’s head, but whether it was an operation to save the cow or practice for surgery on humans, was not clear, a duo of anthropologists reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

Either way, the puncture does seem to represent the earliest known example of veterinary “trepanation” – the boring of a hole into the skull, they said.

“There are many Neolithic (human) skulls in Europe which bear the marks of trepanation. But we have never seen it in animals,” co-author Fernando Ramirez Rozzi of France’s CNRS research institute told AFP.

The Neolithic era was the closing chapter of the Stone Age – a time when prehistoric humans, hunter-gatherer nomads until then, first tried their hand at cultivating crops and building permanent villages.

The cow skull comes from an archaeological site in western France, inhabited by a Stone Age community between 3,400 and 3,000 BC.

Bone fragments scattered around the camp showed that cows were the main source of food, along with pigs, sheep, and goats.

It was thought at first that the matchbox-sized hole was made when the cow was gored by a horned rival in a fight.

But on closer inspection with high-definition scanners, the team found no splintering or fractures consistent with such a strong blow.

The puncture was too regular to have been the work of a gnawing pest, nor did it appear to have been made by a tumour or infectious diseases, such as syphilis or tuberculosis, as the skull showed no other signs of sickness.

DEAD OR ALIVE?

Religious ritual also seemed an unlikely explanation, as the skull was thrown away with the rubbish.

Cut- and scrape marks were found around the hole, said Rozzi – similar to those seen on Neolithic human skulls into which holes had been bored.

“I believe that the evidence of trepanation is indisputable,” the researcher added. “It is the only possible explanation.”

But why would a Stone Age human operate on an animal?

“There are two possible explanations,” according to Rozzi. “Either they were treating the cow, or they were practising on it before trying their hand at the surgery on humans.”

The first option seemed unlikely, he added, given that cows were in such abundance.

The team could not determine whether the hole was made while the cow was still alive, or after it died.

The bone, however, had not started regrowing around the hole, which showed the cow either did not survive the operation, if there was one, or was cut post-mortem.

New evidence shows humans moved to Europe 10,000 years earlier than thought

Modern humans arrived in western Europe about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought. A human tooth found in southern France suggests an early attempt by our species to colonise the continent that lasted for over a thousand years before the Neanderthals re-established themselves. A single tooth found in France’s Rhône Valley shows that modern humans had arrived in western Europe about 54,000 years ago.

A new paper involving a Museum scientist suggests it belongs to Homo sapiens, and that the species arrived in western Europe significantly earlier than previously known. However, researchers believe they didn’t stay long, abandoning the site. After a gap, the Neanderthals returned, before giving way to modern humans again around 45,000 years ago.

Prof Chris Stringer, a Research Leader in human evolution at the Museum and co-author on the paper, says, ‘This finding demonstrates there is even more complexity for the arrival of modern humans in Europe than previously known.

‘These early modern humans probably dispersed around the Mediterranean and went up the Rhône Valley, where they may have lived for more than a thousand years before the Neanderthals eventually returned to these cave sites.

‘It really suggests that modern humans tried to establish themselves in Europe again and again before they eventually succeeded.’

The paper, by an international team of researchers, was published in the journal Science Advances.

First Africa, then the world

The history of modern humans and their close relatives is a complex one, with many disagreements and debates over the exact timing of key events. It’s generally agreed that hominin species evolved from a common ancestor with chimpanzees around seven million years ago, and gave rise to the australopithecines which were among the first of our ancestors who could walk upright. Subsequently, Homo erectus emerged with similar body proportions to modern humans and was the first human species known to have spread beyond Africa.

Following a period of development that is still subject to the intense ongoing debate, our species, Homo sapiens, diverged from the lineage of the Neanderthals, Homo neanderthalensis, around 600,000 years ago. Evolving in Africa, Homo sapiens attempted to spread to new lands on multiple occasions. However, the Neanderthals, who lived across Europe and Asia, were entrenched in their home as Chris explains.

‘We’ve got what seems to be a Homo sapiens fossil in Greece at Apidima Cave dated at around 210,000 years ago,’ he says. ‘However, that is a really early incursion that seemingly didn’t go any further and there’s no archaeology with it to suggest how these people were behaving at that time.

‘At the same site about 40,000 years later, we find a Neanderthal fossil. This suggests that our species appeared here at least briefly, but that Neanderthals then returned later.’

While modern humans continued to disperse into Asia, other groups went west as they attempted to enter Europe over thousands of years. While their migration was initially thought to have occurred quite late, new finds such as modern human fossils from Czechia and Bulgaria and groups of artefacts known as the Initial Upper Palaeolithic pushed this date back to around 45,000 years ago.

However, over in France, there were another group of artefacts that didn’t seem to fit.

‘There’s a series of sites in the Rhône Valley in France where there’s a strange stone tool industry called the Neronian,’ Chris says. ‘It exists for just a short time between two distinct periods of Neanderthal Mousterian tools.

‘Neronian tools have what seem to be little projectile point heads – either tiny spearpoint heads or even more intriguingly they could be arrowheads. These are really distinctive. There’s nothing else like them in Europe at this time.’

While similar tools had been found in Africa and the Middle East, there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest conclusively this was anything other than a unique Neanderthal group. However, one site in the Rhône Valley, known as Grotte Mandarin, contained more concrete evidence of who made these tools as they were found alongside nine teeth.

The first of many?

These teeth were scattered amongst the different layers, representing at least seven different humans. As DNA couldn’t be extracted from them, the shape of each tooth was compared to those of modern humans and Neanderthals to try and assess their species. The researchers found that the single tooth from the Neronian layer was set apart from the rest, which all looked, Neanderthal. It showed characteristics that were instead like those of modern humans. In addition, the layer it was found in dated to between 56,800 to 51,700 years ago.

While a child’s tooth can show a great deal of variation compared to that of an adult, Chris is confident it provides the oldest evidence of Homo sapiens in this area.

‘We’ve only got a single tooth at the moment, and it’s a shame we don’t know more about these people,’ Chris says. ‘But together with the completely distinct Neronian industry, it provides a persuasive scenario for modern humans in western Europe at this surprisingly early time.’

The archaeological evidence of the site suggests that modern humans could have taken over from Neanderthals in the area in as little as one year, perhaps aided by their Neronian tools. Several other sites in the area also have these tools, which are found for a short period of time.

While it’s likely that modern humans and Neanderthals came in contact during this time, there’s currently no contemporaneous genetic evidence that they did. It is known from later evidence that the species bred together, with most people living today have inherited around 2% of their genome from Neanderthals. As for the French sites, the full story remains to be uncovered. How modern humans came so suddenly, and why they disappeared just as rapidly, is still unknown. However, the site offers clues that may allow us to discover the answers.

‘To get to the Rhône Valley, we assume there will be sites along the northern Mediterranean coast,’ Chris says. ‘If this really is a dispersal, then we could be looking for sites in Italy, in Greece, in Turkey, and back to Syria and Lebanon even. There are also some other mysterious industries in central Europe such as the Bohunician. There’s speculation that may have been made by early modern humans as well because it’s nothing like anything the Neanderthals were made before or after.’

Though the Neanderthals subsequently returned to Grotte Mandrin, this came amid the beginning of the end for the species. While Homo sapiens would continue to disperse across the globe, Homo neanderthalensis became less common and diverse, before vanishing forever some 40,000 years ago.

A Cave in France Changes What We Thought We Knew About Neanderthals

The stone rings found inside the French cave were probably built by the Neanderthals 176,500 years ago. The study says that the structures are the oldest known human constructions, possibly altering the way we think about our ancestors.

The team led by archaeologist Jacques Jaubert of the University of Bordeaux, using advanced dating techniques, noted that the stalagmites used in the stone ring construction had to be broken off the ground about 176,500 years ago.

Dating of the structures – if substantiated – would push back the first known cave exploration by members of the human family for tens of thousands of years. It would also change the widely held view that ancient cousins of humans were incapable of complex behaviour.

Earlier research had suggested the structures pre-dated the arrival of modern humans in Europe around 45,000 years ago and thus the idea that Neanderthals could have made them didn’t fit and was largely disregarded.

“Their presence at 336 meters (368 yards) from the entrance of the cave indicates that humans from this period had already mastered the underground environment, which can be considered a major step in human modernity.

A chance find

The structures – discovered by chance in 1990 after a rockslide closed the mouth of a cave at Bruniquel in southwest France – were made from hundreds of pillar-shaped mineral deposits, or stalagmites, which were up to 40 centimetres (16 inches) high.

The authors said the purpose of the oval structures – measuring 16 square meters (172 sq. feet) and 2.3 square meters – is still a matter of speculation, though they may have served some symbolic or ritual purpose.

“A plausible explanation is that this was a common meeting place for some type of ritual social behaviour,” said Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder who wasn’t involved in the study.

The Neanderthals who built them must have had a “project” to go so deep into a cave where there was no natural light, said Jaubert.

“The site provides strong evidence of the great antiquity of those elaborate structures and is an important contribution to a new understanding of the greater level of social complexities of Neanderthal societies,” Villa noted.

Who were the Neanderthals?

Neanderthals were a species or subspecies of humans that became extinct between 40,000 and 28,000 years ago. Closely related to modern humans, they left remains mainly in Eurasia, from western Europe to central, northern, and western Asia.

Neanderthals are generally classified by palaeontologists as the species Homo neanderthalensis, having separated from the Homo sapiens lineage 600,000 years ago.

Several cultural assemblages have been linked to the Neanderthals in Europe. The earliest, the Mousterian stone tool culture, dates to about 300,000 years ago. Late Mousterian artefacts were found in Gorham’s Cave on the south-facing coast of Gibraltar.

In December 2013, researchers reported evidence that Neanderthals practised burial behaviour and buried their dead.

In addition, scientists reported having sequenced the entire genome of a Neanderthal for the first time. The genome was extracted from the toe bone of a 50,000-year-old Neanderthal found in a Siberian cave.

Priceless Art Found In Paris Apartment Vacant Since 1939

Caked in dust and full of turn-of-the-century treasures, this Paris apartment is like going back in time. Having lain untouched for seven decades the abandoned home was discovered three years ago after its owner died aged 91.

The woman who owned the flat, a Mrs De Florian, had fled for the south of France before the outbreak of the Second World War. She never returned and in the 70 years since it looks like no one had set foot inside.

The property was found near a church in the French capital’s 9th arrondissement, between Pigalle red-light district and Opera.

Experts were tasked with drawing up an inventory of her possessions which included a painting by the 19th-century Italian artist Giovanni Boldini.

One expert said it was like stumbling into the castle of Sleeping Beauty, where time had stood still since 1900. ‘There was a smell of old dust,’ said Olivier Choppin-Janvry, who made the discovery.

But he said his heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress.

The painting was by Boldini and the subject a beautiful Frenchwoman who turned out to be the artist’s former muse and Mrs de Florian’s grandmother, Marthe de Florian, a beautiful French actress and socialite of the Belle Époque.

• 

• 

Marthe de Florian was an actress with a long list of ardent admirers whose fervent love letters she kept wrapped neatly in ribbon and were still on the premises.

Among the admirers was the 72nd prime minister of France, George Clemenceau, but also Boldini.

The expert had a hunch the painting was by Boldini, but could find no record of the painting.

‘No reference book dedicated to Boldini mentioned the tableau, which was never exhibited,’ said Marc Ottavi, the art specialist he consulted about the work.

When Mr Choppin-Janvry found a visiting card with a scribbled love note from Boldini, he knew he had struck gold. ‘We had the link and I was sure at that moment that it was indeed a very fine Boldini’.

He finally found a reference to the work in a book by the artist’s widow, which said it was painted in 1898 when Miss de Florian was 24.

The starting price for the painting was £253,000 but it rocketed as ten bidders vyed for the historic work. Finally, it went under the hammer for £1.78million, a world record for the artist.

‘It was a magic moment. One could see that the buyer loved the painting; he paid the price of passion,’ said Mr Ottavi.

Isotope analyses unlock Iron Age secrets

According to a statement released by Flinders University, chemical analysis of 2,600-year-old copper ingots discovered off the coast of southwest France in 1964 indicates they came from a variety of locations.

For the first time, a scientific team led by Flinders University archaeologists, working with the Institute of History (CSIC) in Spain, has examined the origins of Iron Age metal items from an archaeological site in southwest France and found they were sourced from a variety of Mediterranean locations.

The underwater site of Rochelongue believed to be four small boats located west of Cap d’Agde in southwestern France and discovered in 1964, dates to about 600 BCE and its cargo included 800kg of copper ingots and about 1,700 bronze artefacts. They contain very pure copper with traces of lead, antimony, nickel and silver.

Flinders University maritime archaeology researcher Dr Enrique Aragón Nunez says the isotope analysis shows the composition of different ingots in the cache is consistent with Iberian and also eastern Alpine metalliferous sources, and possibly some Mediterranean sources – illustrating that water trade and movement was active in this period between Atlantic, Continental and Mediterranean circuits.

This now provides a key to investigate the coastal mobility and cultural interactions between the Languedoc area in France and the broader Western Mediterranean basin in 600 BCE – before permanent Greek settlement occurred in this region.

Trade for metals, especially with seafaring people from the Levant, Aegean and Greek mainland, influenced these indigenous communities with the introduction of their foreign cultural goods and practices.

While the various sizes, shapes and composition of the various ingots found at Rochelongue show they originated from diverse geographical sources, the elemental and lead isotope analyses provide much more comprehensive knowledge, showing that a broad and diverse exchange network existed in this period for metals that includes continental and maritime routes.

“These metallic objects are important diagnostically because they lend themselves to source tracing of geological components, and technological studies of their processing and manufacture,” says Flinders University Maritime Archaeology Associate Professor Wendy van Duivenvoorde.

“The copper ingots were made of unalloyed copper with low levels of impurities – and more than half can be linked to the Iberian Peninsula.

This points to the circulation of metal through the wider Mediterranean region, but also to local and western alpine mining and manufacture, and possibly north-western Sardinia.

“Therefore, the Rochelongue items speak of indigenous agency rather than maritime intervention.”

All mass spectrometry work on the copper ingots was performed at SGlker Lab from the University of the Basque Country (UPV) Bilbao, Spain.

Archaeologists discover medieval port in west France

A medieval port has been discovered in a 2,500m2 building site and archaeological dig surrounding a chateau in Vendée, western France.

Among the discoveries are a large number of oak beams that are extremely well-preserved thanks to the levels of underground humidity in Talmont-Saint-Hilaire, where the dig has been taking place.

Specialist in wood structures Pierre Péfou told FranceInfo that the discoveries were in such good condition that the team would “be able to identify a very precise date and recreate all of the forested countryside [of the time]”.

He said that visible rings in cross-sections of wood could be used to find out “if it was a tree that grew slowly or quickly, and how the environment impacted its growth, including human activity. [We can tell] if it was pruned or if it was a shoot that grew from a tree stump”.

Archaeologists have already been able to identify a riverbank and a gutter on the site.

As the Atlantic coastline is only a few kilometres away from the site, an initial hypothesis is that boats and ships could have transported merchandise and people to the chateau from England or even Spain, between the 10th and 16th centuries.

Archaeologist Stéphane Augry said: “We can see clearly that the stones that were brought here to build the chateau come from four kilometres away, and transporting them here by boat would have been much easier. 

“It’s cost-effective and means you can transport large quantities of material at once.”

Other findings include artefacts that indicate there was a strong wine trade in the area, including remnants of grape must (freshly crushed grape juice including the skin, seeds and stems of the fruit).

A metal pilgrims medal has also been discovered, indicating a fishing trade and economic exchange.

The main artefacts have been collected and transported away from the site to be studied by researchers at L’Institut national de Recherches archéologiques préventives.

Deep in a Cave in France Neanderthals Constructed Mysterious Ring Structures 176,000 Years Ago

In February 1990, thanks to a 15-year-old boy named Bruno Kowalsczewski, footsteps echoed through the chambers of Bruniquel Cave for the first time in tens of thousands of years.

The cave sits in France’s scenic Aveyron Valley, but its entrance had long been sealed by an ancient rockslide. Kowalsczewski’s father had detected faint wisps of air emerging from the scree, and the boy spent three years clearing away the rubble. He eventually dug out a tight, thirty-meter-long passage that the thinnest members of the local caving club could squeeze through.

They found themselves in a large, roomy corridor. There were animal bones and signs of bear activity, but nothing recent. The floor was pockmarked with pools of water. The walls were punctuated by stalactites (the ones that hang down) and stalagmites (the ones that stick up).

Some 336 meters into the cave, the caver stumbled across something extraordinary—a vast chamber where several stalagmites had been deliberately broken. Most of the 400 pieces had been arranged into two rings—a large one between 4 and 7 meters across, and a smaller one just 2 meters wide. Others had been propped up against these donuts. Yet others had been stacked into four piles. Traces of fire were everywhere, and there was a mass of burnt bones.  

These weren’t natural formations, and they weren’t the work of bears. They were built by people. Recognizing the site’s value, the caver brought in archaeologist Francois Rouzaud. Using carbon-dating, Rouzaud estimated that a burnt bear bone found within the chamber was 47,600 years old, which meant that the stalagmite rings were older than any known cave painting. It also meant that they couldn’t have been the work of Homo sapiens. Their builders must have been the only early humans in the south of France at the time: Neanderthals.

The discovery suggested that Neanderthals were more sophisticated than anyone had given them credit for. They wielded fire, ventured deep underground, and shaped the subterranean rock into complex constructions. Perhaps they even carried out rituals; after all, there was no evidence that anyone actually lived in the cave, so what else were the rings and mounds for?  

Rouzaud would never know. In April 1999, while guiding colleagues through a different cave, he suffered a fatal heart attack. With his death, work on the Bruniquel Cave ceased, and its incredible contents were neglected. They’ve only now re-entered the limelight because Sophie Verheyden went on holiday.

A life-long caver, Verheyden works at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, where she specializes in stalagmites. She treats them as time capsules, using the chemicals within them to reconstruct the climate of past millennia. So when she learned about Bruniquel Cave, while visiting the region on holiday and seeing a display at a nearby castle, she had only one thought: Why hadn’t anyone dated the broken stalagmites themselves?”

She knew that Rouzaud’s date of 47,600 years was impressive but suspect. Carbon dating is only accurate for samples younger than 50,000 years, so the Bruniquel material was hitting the technique’s limits. They could well have been much older. To get a better estimate, Verheyden assembled a team including archaeologist Jacques Jaubert and fellow stalagmite expert Dominique Genty. In 2013, they got permission to study the site and crawled into it themselves. “I’m not very big, and I had to put one arm before me and one behind to get through,” says Verheyden. “It’s kind of magical, even without the structures.”

After drilling into the stalagmites and pulling out cylinders of rock, the team could see an obvious transition between two layers. On one side were old minerals that were part of the original stalagmites; on the other were newer layers that had been laid down after the fragments were broken off by the cave’s former users. By measuring uranium levels on either side of the divide, the team could accurately tell when each stalagmite had been snapped off for construction.

Their date? 176,500 years ago, give or take a few millennia.

“When I announced the age to Jacques, he asked me to repeat it because it was so incredible,” says Verheyden. Outside Bruniquel Cave, the earliest, unambiguous human constructions are just 20,000 years old. Most of these are ruins—collapsed collections of mammoth bones and deer antlers. By comparison, the Bruniquel stalagmite rings are well-preserved and far more ancient.

And if Rouzaud’s work made it unlikely that modern humans built the rings, Verheyden’s study grinds that possibility into the dust. Neanderthals must have been responsible. There simply wasn’t any other hominin in that region at that time.

Why did they build the rings and mounds? The structures weren’t foundations for huts; the chamber contains no stone tools, human bones, or any other sign of permanent occupation, and besides, why build shelter inside a cave? “A plausible explanation is that this was a meeting place for some type of ritual social behavior,” says Paola Villa from the University of Colorado Museum.

“When you see such a structure so far into the cave, you think of something cultural or religious, but that’s not proven,” adds Verheyden. Indeed, despite some fanciful speculations about cave bear cults, no one really knows.

Nor is it clear how the Neanderthals made the structures. Verheyden says it couldn’t have been one lone artisan, toiling away in the dark. Most likely, there was a team and a technically skilled one at that. They broke rocks deliberately and arranged them precisely. They used fire, too. More than 120 fragments have red and black streaks that aren’t found elsewhere in the chamber of the cave beyond.

They were the result of deliberately applied heat, at intensities strong enough to occasionally crack the rock. “The Neanderthal group responsible for these constructions had a level of social organization that was more complex than previously thought,” the team writes.

These discoveries are part of the Neanderthals’ ongoing rehabilitation. Since their discovery, scientists have tried to understand why they died out and we did not, with the implicit assumption that they were inferior in some important way. Indeed, to describe someone as a Neanderthal today is to accuse them of unsophisticated brutishness.

But we now know that Neanderthals made tools, used fire, made art, buried their dead, and perhaps even had language. “The new findings have ushered a transformation of the Neanderthal from a knuckle-dragging savage rightfully defeated in an evolutionary contest, to a distant cousin that holds clues to our identity,” wrote Lydia Pyne in Nautilus.

And now, we have Bruniquel Cave with its structures that are unprecedented in their complexity, antiquity, and depth within the darkness. We know that 400,000 years ago, some ancient hominins chucked their dead into a cave at Sima de Los Huesos, but there’s no evidence of the careful constructions in Bruniquel. There’s evidence of painting and sculpture within caves, but none older than 42,000 years. There are signs that Neanderthals used caves, but nothing to suggest that they frequently ventured deeper than sunlight.

“I think we have several lines of evidence showing that the cognitive abilities and behaviors of Neanderthals were complex,” says Marie Soressi from Leiden University. “But we had no direct evidence of their ability to build. That changes the picture for me. It’s puzzling to find such structures so deep inside the cave.”

To solve these puzzles, Verheyden wants to start cutting into the cave’s floor. It has been covered by layers of calcite, which may conceal specimens that hint at the chamber’s purpose. Verheyden also notes that the entrance they’ve been using cannot possibly have been the only one. “We’re crawling through this small thing and there are bear hollows in the cave. I don’t think the bears went in that way!” she says. “There must have been some other passage that collapsed.”

Discovered by chance 94 years on Bodies of 21 German soldiers in perfectly-preserved First World War trenches

The bodies of 21 German soldiers entombed in a perfectly preserved World War One shelter have been discovered 94 years after they were killed. The men were part of a larger group of 34 who were buried alive when a huge Allied shell exploded above the tunnel in 1918, causing it to cave in.

Thirteen bodies were recovered from the underground shelter, but the remaining men had to be left under a mountain of mud as it was too dangerous to retrieve them.

Nearly a century later, French archaeologists stumbled upon the mass grave on the former Western Front in eastern France during excavation work for a road-building project.

Many of the skeletal remains were found in the same positions the men had been in at the time of the collapse, prompting experts to liken the scene to Pompeii.

A number of the soldiers were discovered sitting upright on a bench, one was lying in his bed and another was in the foetal position having been thrown down a flight of stairs.

As well as the bodies, poignant personal effects such as boots, helmets, weapons, wine bottles, spectacles, wallets, pipes, cigarette cases and pocketbooks were also found.

Even the skeleton of a goat was found, assumed to be a source of fresh milk for the soldiers. Archaeologists believe the items have been so well-preserved because hardly any air, water, or lights had penetrated the trench.

The 300ft-long tunnel was located 18ft beneath the surface near the small town of Carspach in the Alsace region of France.

Michael Landolt, the archaeologist leading the dig, said: ‘It’s a bit like Pompeii. Everything collapsed in seconds and is just the way it was at the time.

‘Here, as in Pompeii, we found the bodies as they were at the moment of their death. Some of the men were found in sitting positions on a bench, others lying down. One was projected down a flight of wooden stairs and was found in a foetal position.

‘The collapsed shelter was filled with soil. The items were very well-preserved because of the absence of air and light and water.

‘Metal objects were rusty, wood was in good condition and we found some pages of newspapers that were still readable. The leather was in good condition as well, still supple.

‘The items will be taken to a laboratory, cleaned and examined.’

Archaeologists also uncovered the wooden sides, floors, and stairways of the shelter. The dead soldiers were part of the 6th Company, 94th Reserve Infantry Regiment.

Their names are all known – they include Musketeer Martin Heidrich, 20, Private Harry Bierkamp, 22, and Lieutenant August Hutten, 37, whose names are inscribed on a memorial in the nearby German war cemetery of Illfurth.

The bodies have been handed over to the German War Graves Commission but unless relatives can be found and they request the remains to be repatriated, it is planned that the men will be buried at Illfurth.

The underground tunnel was big enough to shelter 500 men and had 16 exits. It would have been equipped with heating, telephone connections, electricity, beds, and a pipe to pump out water.

The French attacked the shelter on March 18, 1918, with aerial mines that penetrated the ground and blasted in the sidewall of the shelter in two points.

It is estimated that over 165,000 Commonwealth soldiers are still unaccounted for on the Western Front.