A group of researchers managed to find evidence of Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa being the oldest inhabited home in history.
According to some archaeologists, the house has been inhabited by ancient humans since two million years ago.
The Journal of Quaternary Science Reviews from the University of Toronto, Canada, and Hebrew University Jerusalem teams confirmed the age of the house by testing sediment in the cave.
“We can now say with confidence that our human ancestors were making simple Oldowan stone tools inside the Wonderwerk Cave 1.8 million years ago,” said the journal’s lead author, Professor Ron Shaar.
He said the team analyzed a 2.5-meter thick layer of sediment that contained stone tools, animal remains, and fire remnants.
“We carefully removed hundreds of tiny sediment samples from the cave walls and measured their magnetic signal.
“Our lab analysis showed that some of the samples were magnetized to the south instead of the north, which is the direction of today’s magnetic field,” he said.
The research team also found some remains used by ancient humans such as hand axes as well as ash and charred bones.
It proves the ancient humans who inhabited the cave already used fire about a million years ago.
The historic site inside the Wonderwerk Caves was discovered by some farmers around the 1940s.
Since then excavations have been carried out to unravel the mystery of human existence in caves about two million years ago.
Source: Artnet, Science Direct, Sci News