176,000 Year-Old Rock Formations Could Be the First Known Sculptures

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, in the south-west of France, scientists have discovered a chamber with ring-shaped structures made of stalagmites,both broken and whole.A sort of a small-scale Stonehenge, but with stalagmites instead of big rocks.At first, they carbon-dated the area to around 47,000 years ago, but they recently used a different kind of method.With uranium-thorium dating (sounds awesome, btw!), they managed to date the area to 176,000 years ago – three and a half times the original dating!Now, the only humans who lived there in those days were the Neanderthals, and scientists concluded that Neanderthals must have been the ones to make the stalagmite structures in the cave.This is a very important discovery, because it helped scientists realize that Neanderthals ere going deep down into the caves, as opposed to earlier findings. The chamber inside Bruniquel Cave gives us the opportunity to learn more about the lives of first humans, and broaden our view on our Neanderthal ancestors.