Deep inside Bruniquel Cave in southern France, 336 m from the entrance, lie six structures of broken stalagmites — two rings and four smaller piles, about 2.2 tons in all. Some pieces were blackened by fire. Dating mineral growth over the breaks puts the work at roughly 176,000 years ago, likely Neanderthals. 🔥
Neanderthal-built stalagmite rings dated to about 176,000 years ago in France
FranceArchitecture
Key facts
- Inside Bruniquel Cave in southern France, 336 m from the entrance, six structures made from broken stalagmites were found.
- The stalagmite sections were arranged into two rings and four smaller piles totalling around 2.2 tons; some pieces were laid in layers and others helped support the arrangement.
- Traces of fire were found on the structures, with pieces blackened or cracked by heat, indicating deliberate use of fire in the chamber.
- Dating combined fresh secondary mineral growth over the broken stalagmite with the original stalagmite material, placing the construction around 176,000 years ago.
- At that time Neanderthals were the only known human population in Europe, so based on age and location the researchers consider them the likely builders.
- The function of the rings remains unknown; the evidence indicates deliberate rearrangement of the cave space deep underground.
Sources
sciencealert.com
Linked in video description
archaeology.org
Linked in video description
Neanderthals built mystery underground circles 175000 ...newscientist.com
Rings of stalagmites on a cave floor were arranged by our extinct human relatives, hinting at their sophistication and intelligence.
A look at the Neanderthal deep cave structures from ...johnhawks.net
More than 400 stalagmites were broken, moved, and piled into rings on the cave floor. Calcite had formed upon many parts of these structures ...
Neanderthals built mysterious cave structures ...theguardian.com
The extraordinary constructions are made from nearly 400 stalagmites that have been yanked from the ground and stacked on top of one another to ...
Bruniquel Caveen.wikipedia.org
There are also four stacks of stalagmites measuring between 0.55 and 2.60 metres in diameter, two of which were inside the large ring and two outside it.
Did Neanderthals Build Stone Circles?blog.education.nationalgeographic.org
The six structures in Bruniquel cave are composed of speleothems or fragments of speleothems (speleofacts). The orange spots represent the ...
Was this story useful?
Keep exploring
Every site on this page sits on the globe, and the people who research them are on the Discord.
3D Globe · Sites by country · Story Archive · Research Library · Weekly Journal · Search
AI-generated text · images from the original sources · always verify with the sources.