archaeologist

"Despite the importance of bone needles to explaining global modern human dispersal, archaeologists have never identified the materials used to produce them, thus limiting understanding of this important cultural innovation," the researchers wrote.

Renovation work at Notre-Dame has been a boon for archaeologists, who have been able to access underground areas that date back to hundreds of years before the cathedral was built.

Preliminary findings confirm earlier estimates made by archaeologists in the 1980s, who suggested the paintings were created starting about 13,000 years ago.

"According to the psychoacoustic criterion used, the echoes are so strong that there is no reason to assume that the people in the past did not hear them," archaeologist Riitta Rainio estimates.

Considered by archaeologists as an “open museum,” the island possesses the highest density of Neolithic and Bronze Age archaeological sites in Europe.