ASIA, SAUDI ARABIA, WORLD

Scientists discover hundreds of thousands of animal, and human bones in Saudi Arabia cave

Scientists discover hundreds of thousands of animal, and human bones in Saudi Arabia cave

Although hyenas look and hunt like canines, they’re members of the mongoose family and therefore more closely related to a cat. However, just like dogs, hyenas have an affinity for hiding bones — it’s just that they can tend to go a bit overboard.

The Umm Jirsan lava tube in Saudi Arabia.

Case in point, archaeologists were left speechless after they stumbled across a lava tube cavern in northwestern Saudi Arabia that is packed with hundreds of thousands of bones gathered by striped hyenas over the course of 7,000 years.

The ultimate hoarders

The gruesome floor filled with ancient animal bones was found deep in a lava tube system — a network of caverns carved by lava flow. The site, known as Umm Jirsan, was discovered in 2007, but it was only recently that researchers ventured deep into the dark caverns.

Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, led a team of researchers who catalogued nearly 2,000 bones and teeth belonging to at least 14 different species, including cattle, horses, camels, rodents, and even humans.

Hundreds of thousands of other bones that are yet to be analyzed still lie on the cavernous floor.

Radiocarbon dating of the samples suggests the animal remains range from 439 to 6,839 years ago, which can only mean these lava tubes had been used as dens for at least 6,000 years.

Images of Saudi Arabia’s Umm Jirsan “hyena cave”: A: Entrance to the western passage and surrounding area. B: Entrance to the western passage. Note the team members on the right-hand wall for scale. C: The back chamber in which the excavation was carried out. D: Plotted sampling square before surface collection and excavation. Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) is a bit smaller than spotted and brown hyenas. They have a broad head with dark eyes, a thick muzzle, and large, pointed ears, with a mane of long hair growing along the back.

Their most striking feature is the legs: the front legs are much longer than the hind legs. This gives hyenas their distinctive walk, making them seem like they’re always limping uphill.

Hyenas are nocturnal or crepuscular predators that stay out of sight during the day, preferably in a natural cave or a burrow dug into the hillside. Sometimes they may take over the dens of other creatures where they transport bones to be eaten, fed to the young, or cached for later use.

It’s a well-established fact that hyena dens aren’t tidy at all, being normal to find leftover bones scattered across the floor. However, the lava tube horde stunned even the researchers who were most familiar with the hyenas.

Hyenas will eat an entire human body — except for the skull cap

Although they didn’t find hyenas at the site, the researchers are certain this was one of their dens judging from the cuts, bites, and digestion marks left on the bones.

The presence of human skull fragments was also telling of hyena presence since the animals are known to scavenge through burial grounds in search of food. They normally will consume everything except for the top of the skull.

“The size and composition of the bone accumulation, as well as the presence of hyena skeletal remains and coprolites, suggest that the assemblage was primarily accumulated by striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena),” the authors wrote in a study published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.

Molars and mandibles belonging to wild cows, rabbits, wild goats, camels, and wolves.

It’s highly unlikely that the six skullcaps with gnaw marks on them found at the site belong to humans who were killed by a hyena hunting party.

The mammals are mostly scavengers but when they do hunt they prefer to target hares, birds, and antelopes. However, the possibility that some hunter-gatherers were killed by hyena packs cannot be entirely ruled out.

Today, striped hyenas are a threatened species in Saudia Arabia but thousands of years ago they were common across the Arabian Peninsula.

The current investigation at Umm Jirsan was undertaken as part of the Paleo deserts Project, a large-scale research initiative aimed at tracking environmental and climate change in the Arabian Desert region over the past one million years.

Of particular interest is how human and animal migration in the region waxed and waned with the changing climate. This is a challenging goal since the unforgiving desert climate in the region tends to destroy any exposed organic matter.  Luckily, the Umm Jirsan lava tubes create a perfect time capsule that will give scientists material to work with for years to come.

ASIA, RUSSIA, WORLD

Well-Preserved Cave Lion Cub Found to be a 28,000-Year-Old Female

Well-Preserved Cave Lion Cub Found to be a 28,000-Year-Old Female

A nearly 28,000-year-old cave lion cub discovered frozen in the Siberian permafrost is so well preserved, you can still make out each and every one of her whiskers.

Researchers in Sweden claim the cub, nicknamed Sparta, is probably the best-preserved Ice Age animal ever uncovered and describe Sparta in Quaternary. Her teeth, skin, and soft tissue have all been mummified by the ice. Even her organs remain intact.

To date, Sparta is the fourth cave lion cub (Panthera spelaea) found buried in the permafrost of Yakutia, which lies in the northeast corner of Russia. She was discovered in 2018 by local resident Boris Berezhnev who was looking for ancient mammoth tusks among the tundra.

As wildlife hunting and trade have become more restricted, ‘tusk hunters’ like Berezhnev have begun to search for ancient ivory in the icy north. With climate change weakening the permafrost and extending the tusk hunting season, we’re finding more ancient remains – and not just from woolly mammoths. In the past few years, residents in Siberia have pulled woolly rhinos, wolves, brown bears, horses, reindeer, and bison out of the permafrost, and some of these carcasses date as far back as 40,000 years.

Clearly, these icy steppes were once home to numerous large mammals. In fact, a year before finding Sparta near the Semyuelyakh River, Berezhnev found another cave lion carcass just 15 meters (49 feet) away. This one, named Boris, showed slightly more damage, possibly from its permafrost cave collapsing, but it was still remarkably intact. 

Researchers in Sweden, who have since helped analyze the carcasses, claim both Boris and Sparta are about one to two months old. Yet despite their physical proximity and similar appearances, Boris is thought to be roughly 15,000 years older, give or take a few centuries.

Today, the little we know about cave lions mostly comes from fossils, tracks, and ancient cave art.

Mummified bodies found in permafrost are some of the best evidence we have of their existence. Their frozen carcasses look remarkably similar to modern lions in many ways, just on a much larger scale and with a much warmer coat. But one of the most iconic features of African lions, their mane, seems to be missing on cave lions.

Figure 6 from the Quaternary study: The appearance of the frozen cave lion cub mummies: (a) female Sparta; (b) male Boris. Photos of lion cubs’ heads from the side: (c) Sparta; (d) Boris; (e) Sparta mummy as seen from above; (f) dark brown ‘brush’ of Sparta’s tail.


In fact, early human artwork from the time suggests cave lions rarely sported manes, or if they did, they were extremely discrete. Some Ice Age paintings, for instance, show dark patterns of colouring on the cave lion’s face, but it’s unclear what that represents.

Boris and Sparta are both juvenile cave lions, which means it’s hard to say how their coats would have developed as they aged. Apart from some dark colouring on the backs of their ears, researchers say they are mostly covered in yellowish-brown fur.

If the cubs had a chance to grow up, experts think their fur would probably have turned more of a light grey to help them camouflage in the cold Siberian Arctic.

The presence of a mane is important because it could tell us about the social structures of cave lions. For example, whether they live by themselves or in groups with clear hierarchies.

At the moment, scientists are still debating whether cave lions during the Ice Age roamed the steppes of Siberia on their own or in pride like modern African lions.

There’s one particular painting in France’s Chauvet cave from the Ice Age that depicts nearly a dozen cave lions, both male and female, in the act of hunting bison.

“Hunting in groups can be more effective than solitary hunting when the prey is large, and cave lions would have had many such prey species available in their ecosystem, for example, mammoths and rhinoceros, when there were no other options available to them,” the authors of the recent analysis write.

“In addition, large pride would have helped to protect their kill from the competition and also to protect the cubs and young from predators.”

For now, this is all just guesswork. Even though we have found some astonishingly intact cave lions in recent years, we still don’t have enough information about these extinct predators to reach any conclusions about their social structures.

Perhaps one day, that could change. Maybe we will unearth another cave lion with some hint about their long-lost lives. Or maybe one day, we will successfully bring cave lions back to life.

“There is a very realistic chance to recreate cave lions, and it would be a lot easier than to clone a woolly mammoth,” palaeontologist and one of the study’s authors Albert Protopopov told the Siberian Times.

Some scientists have suggested we do this with woolly mammoths as well, but cave lions are a much younger species. Protopopov suggests that we could supplement their clones with some of the genes from modern African lions, making the work a bit easier. That’s obviously a controversial idea, and the reality of it is probably still a ways off.

For now, the next step is to sequence the entire genome of both Sparta and Boris. Then, we can figure out what to do with the information we collect.

ASIA, WORLD

Tajik Buddha in Nirvana – the Largest in the World: 42 feet long and 9 feet high

Tajik Buddha in Nirvana – the Largest in the World: 42 feet long and 9 feet high

Tajik Buddha in Nirvana – the Largest in the World: 42 feet long and 9 feet high

In the past, while Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan destroyed two immense statues of Buddha, art historians in neighboring Tajikistan meticulously restored a huge reclining Buddha from the same period. The world’s largest “Buddha in Nirvana.”

Tajikistan carefully preserves the artifacts of Buddhism. The country is also home to the world’s largest clay statue of Buddha in Nirvana.

It is not for nothing that the Buddha in Dushanbe attracts thousands of tourists and pilgrims every year. This is the largest statue of Buddha in Nirvana in the world. Its length is about 14 meters, and it was created as much as 1600 years ago.

The Museum of Antiquities in Dushanbe became famous precisely thanks to her. Buddha today is one of the main attractions of the country.

The terra-cotta figure, found in the 1960s among the ruins of a temple in southern Tajikistan, depicts a reclining Buddha, one hand resting on his hip, the other on a pile of pillows.

Soviet archaeologists discovered the Buddha in the temple at the ruins of Adjina-Tepa, on a wind-swept field 50 miles north of the Afghan border.

Buddha in Nirvana.

Known as Buddha in Nirvana, it was created in the sixth or seventh century and is believed to be a relic from the time when Buddhism ruled over the high mountains and deep valleys of Central Asia and Afghanistan before the advent of Islam.

Like its Afghan cousins, Tajikistan’s Buddha is huge: 42 feet long and 9 feet high. The statue is housed in a hall that is a replica of the room in a Buddhist monastery where the Buddha was once kept, visited by worshipers who entered the room, walked past the statue, and walked out.

For more than 30 years after its discovery, the statue was kept in three separate pieces in the storage rooms of the Tajik Museum of Architecture and History because there was no money to restore it.

Following independence, Tajikistan invited restorers from Russia’s Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg and solicited foreign grants.

A French non-governmental organization, the Agency for Technological Cooperation and Development, helped pay specialists involved in the restoration.

In early 2001, the United States allocated 30 thousand dollars for the restoration of the clay figure. A little later the Japanese government issued a grant of 260 thousand dollars to the museum.

For the final restoration of the Buddha, restorers from the Hermitage, under the direction of Vera Fomin, came to the aid of their Tajik colleagues of the Museum of Antiquities.

The restoration of the giant statue lasted two years (2000-2001). The largest clay statue of Buddha in the world appeared before the visitors of the Museum of Antiquities on September 9, 2000, the day of the 10th anniversary of the independence of Tajikistan.

More than 97% of the population of Tajikistan today are Muslims, and according to the museum’s management, caring for artifacts and ancient objects of worship from the pre-Islamic era speaks of tolerance and respect for other faiths and demonstrates the true face of a Muslim.

ENGLAND, EUROPE, WORLD

The Mysterious Origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant Finally Revealed

The Mysterious Origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant Finally Revealed

The Mysterious Origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant Finally Revealed

There’s a huge chalk image of a man with a powerful erection and no clothes on his butt located in the hills of Dorset, England. After centuries of speculation, the origins of the Cerne Abbas Giant may finally have been determined, according to a recent study.

The Cerne Abbas Giant is a large rural drawing carved into the chalk hillside in the village of Cerne Abbas, Dorset, England. Spanning approximately 180 feet (55 meters), this figure’s origins likely date back to ancient times, but its exact purpose remains uncertain.

Some interpret the figure as carrying natural symbolism related to fertility and sexuality, while others see it as purely symbolic of ancient beliefs.

Some even postured that the figure was meant to make a mockery of Oliver Cromwell, the 17th-century statesman who was jokingly dubbed “England’s Hercules” by his enemies.

According to this theory, the prominent phallus was to mock Cromwell’s Puritanism.

But now, after hundreds of years of debate, academics believe they have the answer to the hillside riddle and declared the figure probably depicts the Greek hero Hercules. Hence, he was probably created as a pagan idol during the Iron Age in Britain.

Historians suggest the hill the huge chalk carving is located on could have once been a mustering point for Anglo-Saxon troops, with the giant acting as a rallying symbol.

However, the story was later rewritten by meddling monks, perhaps hoping to secure the fortunes of the local patron saint.

In a paper published in journal Speculum, researchers say the giant was adopted by Christians who claimed it depicted their saint. It also argues the ‘British god’ idea was a myth which arose from a mistranslation.

The researchers note that Hercules is almost always depicted in artworks with a club, as well as other motifs seen on the Cerne Abbas Giant, such as nudity and prominent ribs.

Historians believe they have now answered the mystery of what Dorset’s Cerne Abbas carving is meant to depict – with academics suggesting it shows Greek hero Hercules.

“At first glance, an early medieval date seems odd for a figure which looks like the classical god Hercules,” Dr Helen Gittos and Dr Thomas Morcom write.

“The club is the clue. Hercules was one of the most frequently depicted figures in the classical world, and his distinctively knotted club acted as an identificatory label, like the keys of Saint Peter or the wheel of Saint Catherine. He was usually depicted in motion, as at Cerne, and the ribs, lower line of the stomach, and nakedness are all typical,” the study authors explain.

“Alongside his club, he was most often associated with his lionskin mantle, and it is likely that one of these originally hung from the giant’s left arm,” they add.

Despite the pagan imagery, the artwork is relatively recent and dates to the early Middle Ages, sometime between 700 CE and 1100 CE. Researchers say there are many references to Hercules in the British Isles during the time the giant was constructed.

Another theory came to prominence after the giant was dated, with people claiming it was a depiction of an Anglo-Saxon god called Helith. This has been discounted by modern theories.

Researchers Morcom and Gittos traced the root of this idea to one text, with the name Helith coming from a 13th-century mistranslation of the Latin word for Elijah, the Old Testament prophet. It seems that Helith never existed.

Even though the most recent study purports to have provided an answer to the giant’s origins mystery, scientists acknowledge that the real significance of the Cerne Abbas will likely remain a matter of debate for many years to come.

EUROPE, TURKEY, WORLD

1,400-year-old coins found in a piggy bank in ancient city of Hadrianopolis

1,400-year-old coins found in a piggy bank in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis

1,400-year-old coins found in a piggy bank in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis

Archaeologists unearthed a collection of 10 coins believed to date back nearly 1,400 years, retrieved from what appears to be a piggy bank in the ongoing excavations at the ancient city of Hadrianopolis in Karabük’s Eskipazar district, Türkiye.

Excavations started in 2003 at the structures in Hadrianopolis and continue in periods under the direction of Ersin Çelikbaş, a lecturer at the Archaeology Department of Karabük University (KBÜ).

The ancient city is known as “Zeugma of the Black Sea” due to its mosaics depicting various animals such as horses, elephants, panthers, deer, and griffons. Zeugma is a mosaic museum in Gaziantep, Türkiye’s southeastern province.

Hadrianopolis, known for its churches decorated with mosaics, has produced important discoveries that include walls, villas, defensive fortifications, rock tombs, theaters, arched and domed structures, and monumental cultic niches.

Discussing the recent findings with Anadolu Agency (AA), Çelikbaş highlighting their efforts to uncover new structures across extensive areas with a dedicated team of approximately 60 individuals.

Explaining the discoveries within a particular building whose exact function remains partially ambiguous, Çelikbaş suggested: “We presume it might have served as a kitchen based on the artifacts found within.

Various vessels and kitchen utensils were among the unearthed items. Stratigraphy indicates the building’s prolonged use, though specifics about its final phase remain elusive.”

The 1,400-year-old coins were unearthed in the ancient city of Hadrianopolis, Karabük, Türkiye.

Remarkably, a significant archaeological finding emerged from this area in the form of a money box containing 10 coins dating back to the era of Constans II, believed to span from A.D. 641 to 666, marking the apparent culmination of the building’s usage during the seventh century.

While defining these coins as a treasure in archaeological terms, Çelikbaş suggested an alternative use, saying: “We suspect it was employed as a primitive form of a piggy bank, possibly by a female member of the household during that era, rather than for hiding or burying money.”

The unearthing of these coins provides a glimpse into the final phase of the building’s utilization. It offers valuable insights into ancient domestic practices, highlighting the intersection of archaeology and everyday life in antiquity.

Hadrianopolis in Paphlagonia, also known as Eskipazar, was a city situated in southwestern Asia Minor, located approximately 3km west of the modern town of Eskipazar in the Karabuk Province.

The city was inhabited from at least the 1st century BC until the 8th century AD and was named after the Roman emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD.

Hadrianopolis was established during the late Hellenistic, Roman, and early Byzantine periods.

When Emperor Theodosius I (347-395) established a new province called Honorias, combining Paphlagonia and Bithynia, the city became known as Hadrianopolis in Honorias. It was largely due to its Christian diocese that it was listed among the current titular sees in the Annuario Pontificio.

AFRICA, EGYPT, WORLD

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after a re-examination of a mummified teen mom who died in childbirth

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after a re-examination of a mummified teen mom who died in childbirth

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after a re-examination of a mummified teen mom who died in childbirth

Archaeologists have made a shocking discovery after re-examining the mummified remains of a teen mom aged just 14–17 who died in childbirth more than 1,500 years ago.

What makes the find both horrifying and extraordinary at the same time, is one fetus and placenta found in the pelvic area, and another in the chest.

Researchers analyzed the mummified remains of a teenage girl who died during childbirth in ancient Egypt, revealing that the young mother-to-be was in the process of delivering twins when she died. Unfortunately, the labor took a negative turn when the first baby’s head became stuck in the birth canal, resulting in the deaths of both infants and the mother.

In Egypt’s Kharga Oasis, the teen mom was discovered in 1908 at the El Bagawat cemetery. The researchers noted that she had been extensively layered with “a great quantity of salt,” an ancient Egyptian practice known for its desiccating properties that effectively dried out the entire body. The body was dated to the Late Dynasty in ancient Egyptian history, spanning from 404 to 343 BC.

Field notes from the time reveal that she was found with a fetus and placenta between her legs, leading to the conclusion that she had died from obstetric complications.

Using computed tomography (CT) scans of the body, the George Washington University team revisited the mummy after over a century to ascertain precisely what might have gone wrong. The scans revealed the presence of a second fetus within the woman’s chest cavity, indicating that she was carrying twins.

More startling revelations were to come when the researchers noted that the infant placed between the woman’s legs was missing its head. Upon closer examination, they realized that the baby’s head was still lodged in the mother’s pelvis, leading them to suspect that the fetus had become decapitated during the birthing process.

(a) CT scan of mummy. Circle indicates fetal skull, ribs and long bones lodged in chest cavity. (b) The CT scans detected another fetus lodged in the mummy’s chest cavity, displaying long bones, ribs, neural arches, crania, and five hand bones.

The study authors describe this outcome as a case of “traumatic fetal decapitation,” a rare consequence of breech presentations, i.e., feet first during childbirth.

“This is a rare find,” Francine Margolis, one of the study authors, told McClatchy News. “There are several examples of women dying during childbirth in the archaeological record (one was a twin pregnancy). However, there has never been one found in Egypt.”

The second fetus discovered in the woman’s chest cavity raised some mystery.

According to the researchers, it’s possible that the embalmers were not aware of the twin pregnancy and forgot to remove the second fetus before mummification.

According to IFL Science, the unborn twin may have moved from the womb to the chest cavity as the mummy’s diaphragm dissolved.

“This examination of the mother and her children at birth reconfirms how dangerous pregnancy, labor, and delivery was, especially during this time period,” write the study authors.

The ancient Egyptians held a deep reverence for symbolism, balance, and order, and these beliefs extended to their views on procreation and childbirth.

A spell found on ancient papyrus, the Oracular Amuletic Decree, said, “We shall (cause her) to conceive male children and female children. We shall keep her safe from a Horus-birth, from an irregular birth and from giving birth to twins.”

Spells and incantations like this one reveal a cultural aversion to twin births, seeking protection from “irregular birth” and giving birth to twins. The tragic story of this young mother and her unborn twins is a tragic reminder of the difficulties that ancient women faced during childbirth.

The study – including images of the mummy – is published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.

ASIA, INDONESIA, WORLD

Wounds on Colonial-Era Skull Examined in Indonesia

Wounds on Colonial-Era Skull Examined in Indonesia

Wounds on Colonial-Era Skull Examined in Indonesia
The injuries on the skull of the woman were examined using both digital and ultraviolet light photography.

A possibly enslaved woman may have been executed with a sharp weapon in what is now the Papua province of Indonesia, a new study finds.

Only the skull of the victim is available for analysis, but it revealed that the woman was between 26 and 42 years old when she was killed.

“Multiple sharp force trauma injuries were identified on the frontal, temporal, and occipital bones of the cranium,” the researchers wrote in a paper published Sept. 16 in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology. The team used digital and ultraviolet photography to examine the injuries on the skull.

The woman lived in what scholars call Indonesia’s “colonial period,” a time between the 16th and mid-20th century when the country was controlled by European powers.

The skull was found on Biak Island in 1935 by scientists from Airlangga University in Indonesia. The year and the word “Biak” (which may refer to the Biak people) is written on the skull, researchers noted in the study.

During the colonial period, Europeans went on slave raids and captured local people. The Dutch, who controlled Indonesia during much of this time period, practiced  widespread enslavement.

It’s possible that the woman was killed as part of these raids, but “it is impossible to differentiate if the cranium analyzed in this study belonged to a victim of inter or intra-tribal warfare, or if they were killed as a slave” study lead author Rizky Sugianto Putri, a forensic anthropologist at Airlangga University, told Live Science in an email.

“However, the execution-style wounds on the cranium support that the individual was kneeling or sitting and was not able to defend themselves actively.” 

The team noted that female sorcerers known as “mon” were highly sought during raids. That raises the question as to whether this woman could have been a sorcerer.

The identity of her killers is also unclear. “We do not know who killed her. However, the sharp-force trauma wounds were consistent with a parang, a weapon commonly used by Papuan tribes in the colonial period,” Sugianto Putri said.

Little research has been done on human remains in Indonesia that date to the colonial period. Putri hopes that this paper, and future research, will shed more light on how people lived and died during this period.

EUROPE, FRANCE, WORLD

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France

Carbon-Based Paleolithic Paintings Found in France
Employee in the Lascaux Cave Replica (2022).

A paper was published this month by researchers at the Center de Recherche et de Restauration des Musées de France, revealing that the first carbon-based cave art has been found in Dordogne’s famous Bison Cave.

Researchers Ina Reiche, Yvan Coquinot, Antoine Trosseau, and Anne Maigret have published their findings from the Font-de-Gaume cave in southern France, which is being celebrated as a potential breakthrough for precise radiocarbon dating.

The site was discovered in 1901 and has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1979 as part of the Prehistoric Sites and Decorated Caves of the Vézère Valley.

More than 200 caves filled with Paleolithic (dating from roughly 2.5 million to 12,000 years ago) wall drawings can be found in France’s Dordogne region.

Most of these paintings have been made with iron and manganese oxides, which cannot be dated through radiocarbon dating technologies. This has prevented accurate dating of the designs. However, the first-ever discovery of black carbon-based designs in the Font-de-Gaume cave have opened up an opportunity for groundbreaking reevaluations across the region.

The first discovery of charcoal-based prehistoric cave art in Dordogne. Sci Rep 13, 22235 (2023).

Before these discoveries were made, the wall paintings in the Dordogne were dated to around 12,000 to 17,000 years ago, during the Magdalenian Period. With the new discovery, this could be reevaluated to a much more accurate timeline, pushing dates back more than 2,000 years. The team first found the charcoal-based drawings in February 2020.

The Bison Cave is named after the Paleolithic drawings of animals on its main gallery walls. It is considered one of the best examples of ancient wall painting along with the nearby Lascaux cave.

There are 80 bisons shown on the walls of Font-de-Gaume, in various colors achieved with natural pigments. The French chemist and pharmacist Henri Moissan’s work to identify the pigments used in the drawings won him the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

The first discovery of charcoal-based prehistoric cave art in Dordogne. Sci Rep 13, 22235 (2023).

New research has been done using visible-light and infrared photography, x-ray fluorescence, and spectroscopy, revealing the carbon-based drawings underneath previously known designs. Charcoal depictions of horses, deer, and bison were discovered.

This research will aid comparative research across other sites in the region, and is being heralded as “crucial for archaeological research in the coming years.”

All In One Magazine