Created: Monday, 30 June 2014 10:30

 

SZCZECIN, POLAND—A meteorite fragment has been discovered in the remains of a 9,000-year-old dwelling in the peat near Lake Świdwie in northwestern Poland. The pyrite meteorite fragment is cylindrical in shape, porous, and surprisingly heavy for its size. “The meteorite was brought to the shelter as a special object, which must have been obvious to the contemporary men, knowledgeable of stone raw materials,” Tadeusz Galiński of the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences, told Science & Scholarship in Poland. Tools made of flint, wood, bone, and antler, and objects associated with spiritual culture, such as an amulet, an engraved bone spear tip, and a stick made of antler and decorated with geometric motifs, were also discovered. A second dwelling contained traces of hearths.