The oldest known ritual chamber in the Middle East has been found

An ancient ritual compound has come to light within the deepest, darkest section of a cave located in what’s now northern Israel.

Homo sapiens groups assembled on the cave to hold torchlit ceremonies, almost surely inspired by mythological or religious beliefs, as early as around 37,000 years ago, researchers report December 9 within the Lawsuits of the National Academy of Sciences.

The discovery of this special chamber in Manot Cave unveils the earliest known evidence for collective ritual practices within the Middle East, say archaeologist Omry Barzilai of the University of Haifa and colleagues. As many as around 100 individuals will have fit at some point of this space, they estimate.

Manot Cave’s ritual compound resembles an even older cave chamber revealed in France. Neandertals built circular structures out of broken rock formations within Bruniquel Cave about 176,five hundred years ago, though it’s unclear what activities came about there (SN: 5/25/sixteen). European Neandertals and H. sapiens also painted and drew on cave walls 40,000 years ago or more (SN: 1/27/23).

“The plain concern with making a bounded space within the depths of a cave is shared[byMiddleEastern[byMiddleEasternH. sapiens]with Neandertals and early Homo sapiens in Europe,” says archaeologist Paul Pettitt of Durham University in England. Activities outside of the day after day grind, comparable to rituals attended by regional groups of hunter-gatherers, will have came about in caves previous to anyone decorated cave walls, Pettitt suggests.

Stone tools, butchered animal bones and other items previously excavated at various of spots near Manot Cave’s entrance point to regular human occupations from about Forty six,000 to 33,000 years ago. That encompasses the time at some point of which collective rituals came about within the back of the cave. Earlier fossil finds put H. sapiens at this cave no less than 50,000 years ago (SN: 1/28/15).

Activity within the ritual chamber dates to a time when artifacts within the living areas display influences of Europe’s ancient Aurignacian culture. Distinctive stone tools, bone points, ivory beads and figurines, and early examples of cave art characterized Aurignacian groups. “Manot Cave’s ritual compound is expounded to incoming Aurignacian populations from Europe, likely reflecting their established ritual traditions,” Barzilai says.

Very good natural acoustics made this cave space a first-rate spot for holding group ceremonies, he adds.

A row of slender, natural rock formations rising from the cave floor stand guard just outside Manot Cave’s rear chamber. A round boulder placed in a gap just within the chamber displays engraved lines that create a third-dimensional representation of a tortoise’s shell, Barzilai says. Microscopic marks within the V-shaped grooves indicate that someone carved them on the boulder the usage of sharp stones.

Barzilai suspects that collective rituals at Manot Cave revolved across the tortoise shell replica. The spiritual meanings of tortoises to ancient Middle Easterners, who collected the slow-moving creatures to supplement their diets, remain unknown. But tortoise shells increasingly appeared within the graves of prominent individuals at some point of this region near the end of the Stone Age (SN: 11/3/08).

Barzilai’s group generated a minimum estimated age for the engraving by analyzing the decay rate of radioactive uranium in a thin mineral crust that had formed on the boulder. Researchers currently debate the accuracy of this method for dating cave paintings (SN: 10/28/19). A detailed match of the mineral crust’s chemical makeup to that of previously dated rock formations within the cave helped to narrow down the age estimate to between roughly 37,000 and 35,000 years ago.

A mineral layer that had formed on a deer antler found on the chamber floor dated to across the identical time. The researchers identified a couple of small, human-made incisions on the antler.

Wood ash particles detected in a rock formation within the chamber indicated that visitors had illuminated the pitch-black space with torches. Investigators found no remnants of fireplace pits.