In 1990 A Boy Found 176,500 Yr Old Relics In A Cave That Completely Changed How We See Neandertha

[Music] before we continue with the rest of the video we could use your help click that like button to help spread the word about watch Jojo and also be sure to subscribe and click the notification bell so you don't miss our future videos in 1990 a boy found one hundred seventy six thousand five hundred year old relics in a cave that completely changed how we see Neanderthals a group of enthusiastic explorers squeezed their way down a dark damp and extremely narrow tunnel before stumbling into a cave full of glistening stalactites and mighty stalagmites still they pause for a moment sensing that something is not quite right and it's true these amazing structures have an astonishing secret to reveal when Bruno Cole Chesky father noticed a delicate breeze emerging from the rocks in a maroon valley and south of France the teenage boy was more than a little intrigued and for the next three years he became obsessed with digging through the loose rocks and stone chippings hoping to reveal the source of the mysterious wind by February 1990 moreover the fifteen-year-old had succeeded in digging a narrow passage almost 100 feet long members of the SS AC and archeological caving club based in costate France was the first to make their way through the tiny opening and explore what lay beyond amazingly they found themselves emerging into a large cave there were signs that bears had once been there too and animal bones were scattered across the floor truly this was an incredible find about eleven hundred feet in though the cave opened up into a massive chamber looking up the party saw hundreds of impressive stalactites hanging from the ceiling but it was the stalagmites around their feet that really stopped the explorers in their tracks portions of the natural mineral deposits had been broken off and purposely arranged into circular patterns to the astonished cavers they looked like giant rings the remains of fires were also evident in the cave and a pile of burnt bones was found nearby it was unquestionably the work of human hands now the cave had actually lain unexplored since the landslide during the Pleistocene era sealed the entrance and cut it off from the outside world and when Bruno rediscovered it tens of thousands of years later it was dubbed bruna count cave after a nearby walled village the first people to explore the caves soon realized that they were onto something big so they contacted archaeologist Francoise Rosen from the dr AC midi pyrenees as razaw began to research the cave and it's mysterious stalagmite structures then the first indications of just how special this discovery was soon began to emerge in total 400 pieces or so of broken stalagmites were arranged around the cave making up julu circles there was a large arrangement around 22 feet in diameter and another smaller circle measuring around six-and-a-half feet across each ring was made up of anything between one and four layers of broken pieces with more resting lengthwise against the layers as a means of support additionally there were four separate piles of stalagmites half of them in the interior of the Ring half of the exterior to it throughout the structures were traces of fire - with many of the pieces blackened and burned this combined with the uniform way in which the pieces have been selected and stacked convinced experts beyond doubt that these structures were deliberately built by humans yet it was just the first of many startling revelations to emerge from Bruna kal cave Rosa decided to send a burned barebone discovered at the site for testing when the results arrived he was flabbergasted carbon dating suggested that the bone was forty seven thousand six hundred years old making these stacks stalagmite pieces far older than any cave art ever discovered incredibly though that wasn't the most impressive thing about the discovery if the age of the bone did indeed match the date of the site's construction it would mean that the stalagmites were broken and stacked not by Homo sapiens but by their predecessors the Neanderthals sadly Rizzo did not live to see his research completed he died of a heart attack in 1999 and as a result work at Bruno kal cave was brought to a halt things didn't then pick up again until more than a decade later when paleoclimatologist doctors so fever Haydon from the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences found herself on vacation in the region having seen a display about these stalagmites structures at a local castle where hayden knew she had to take a closer look as a result she enlisted the help of another stalagmite expert Dominique gentie and archaeologist Jackie Joe bear among others together they began their own research at the site in 2013 where Hayden knew that scientific techniques had moved on since Brazeau made his startling discovery whereas he had used carbon dating to roughly work out the age of a piece of bone moreover very Hayden's team thought they might get more accurate results by studying the stalagmites to do this then they extracted samples from the stalagmite stumps and pieces measuring the uranium content present in the rock before and after the break this allowed the team to gain an accurate idea of what the structures were built ultimately the researchers concluded that the site was an amazing 170 6,500 years old and without a doubt the work of the andropause when I announced the age to jean-marie Hayden told the Atlantic in May of 2016 he asked me to repeat it because it was so incredible previously Neanderthals were thought to have been a savage and unsophisticated species that died out to make way for the superior Homo sapiens however the discovery of these structures thought to have served a ritualistic purpose has forced researchers to accept that they may have been far more advanced than anyone suspected their presence away 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 Joubert told The Telegraph in May of 2016 we believe that we are providing evidence of the capacity of Neanderthals to enter a hostile underground environment using fire to light the way to do things that go beyond mere survival the discovery is part of an ongoing scientific movement hoping to change people's perception of Neanderthals as a brutish inferior species modern researchers are revealing instead that perhaps surprisingly they were creative intuitive and capable of far more than they receive credit for please don't forget to share this video with your friends below [Music] [Music]

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Length: 6min 55sec (415 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 25 2018