Ancient bones reveal child was eaten by a gigantic prehistoric BIRD
The two finger bones belonged to a young cave child who died roughly 115,000 years before, making them the oldest known human remains ever found in Poland
SHOCKED archaeologists who found the remains of a Neanderthal child in a cave have revealed he was eaten by a giant prehistoric bird.
The two finger bones belonged to a young child who died roughly 115,000 years ago, making them the oldest known human remains ever found in Poland.
Anthropologists Anita Szczepanek from Krakow's Jagiellonian Universityand Erik Trinkaus from Washington University quickly confirmed they belonged to a young Neanderthal.
Now analysis has revealed the bones were covered with dozens of holes - which experts say is a clear sign the victim had once been food for a so-called terror bird - which could stand up to 10ft tall.
"Analyses show that this is the result of passing through the digestive system of a large bird. This is the first such known example from the Ice Age," said Prof Pawel Valde-Nowak of the Jagiellonian's Institute of Archaeology.
The researchers believe the bird either attacked and partially consumed the child, or fed off of the child after it had died.
Unfortunately, the bones are poorly preserved, which they say eliminates the possibility of a DNA analysis, , according to .
Previously, the oldest human remains uncovered in the country were three Neanderthal molars estimated to be about 52,000 years old.
The researchers said that this is the first known example from the Ice Age of bones passing through a bird’s digestive system.
However, the groundbreaking discovery was almost overlooked as when the phalange bones - from toes or fingers - were first found they were accidentally mixed up with animal bones.
What were the giant terror birds?
After a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs, the terror bird family rose to occupy the niche of terrifying top predator - a supremacy which lasted for almost 60 years.
During that time, 17 species in this family of lethal-beaked killers came and went, while gorging on plant-eating mammals .
Whilst most died out more than a million years ago, some experts beleive their giant relatives were still terrorising the Earth as recent as 10,000 years ago.
It wasn’t until a laboratory analysis was conducted on the bones that scientists figured out how important they were.
That showed that the child was somewhere between five and seven-years-old when he died.
The bones are tiny, less than one centimetre long, and are poorly preserved so scientists will unfortunately not be able to conduct DNA analysis on them.
Despite this setback, the scientists are confident that they belonged to a Neanderthal.
“We have no doubts that these are Neanderthal remains because they come from a very deep layer of the cave, a few meters below the present surface,” Dr. Valde-Nowak said.
“This layer also contains typical stone tools used by the Neanderthal.”
Dr Valde-Nowak added that just because the bones were discovered in the cave, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the Neanderthals used it as a permanent residence.
He said that it is entirely possible that they just used it seasonally.