BARCELONA, SPAIN—According to a BBC News report, researchers from the University of Barcelona and Alcalá University and their colleagues examined and carbon dated a collection of more than 70 artifacts made of wood, reed, and grass that were recovered from southwestern Spain’s Cueva de los Murciélagos, or Cave of the Bats, by nineteenth-century guano miners. The scientists determined that the objects are about 2,000 years older than previously thought. A wooden mace and sandals made of leather, lime, and different types of woven grass are now thought to be about 6,200 years old, while woven grass baskets have been dated to more than 9,000 years ago. “The technological diversity and the treatment of raw materials documented highlights the skill of prehistoric communities,” said María Herrero Otal of the University of Barcelona. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. To read about a lion butchered by hunter-gatherers in a Spanish cave some 15,000 years ago, go to “When Lions Were King: Rituals.”

Source: archaeology.org