Giant, Prehistoric Bird Chowed Down on This Neanderthal Child's Bones

[left-of-center2012]

One Neanderthal child had a very bad day about 115,000 years ago. The child died — that much is certain — and the bones were gulped down and digested by a giant, prehistoric bird, according to archaeologists in Poland. However, it's unclear whether the giant bird killed the child before the gruesome feast or whether the child died from another cause before the bird scavenged the remains, the archaeologists said.

Either way, it appears that the child's phalanges (finger bones) passed "through the digestive system of a large bird," Paweł Valde-Nowak, a professor of archaeology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, said in a statement. "This is the first such known example from the ice age."

The discovery of the Neanderthal child's finger bones is a big finding, especially because the bones, discovered in Ciemna Cave, are the oldest known human remains ever to be found in Poland. Until now, the oldest known human remains in Poland were three Neanderthal molars from Stajnia Cave that dated to between 52,000 and 42,000 years ago.

An analysis of the newly analyzed finger bones revealed that the child was likely between the age of 5 and 7 when he or she died, Valde-Nowak said. "But we have no doubts that these are Neanderthal remains, because they come from a very deep layer of the cave, a few yards below the present surface," Valde-Nowak said. "This layer also contains typical stone tools used by the Neanderthal." Moreover, it appears that the Neanderthals used the cave seasonally, he said.

https://www.livescience.com/63801-giant-bird-ate-neanderthal-child.html

[TreasonousBastard]

1. There's a lot missing in this article...

"Where's the bird?" is brought up in the comments, along with how the fingers got into the cave.

And after all these years of digging around the cave they just found fingers that are over 50,000 years older than the previous oldest remains?

I assume the experts have answers for this and other questions, but a science writer should give us some hint.

[left-of-center2012]

2. "Where's the bird?"

Right!

Very inconsiderate of the bird to fly off after pooping out the dinner,
rather than
remain in the cave to die in old age.