Almost 6,000 years ago, communities used a cave in Spain as a burial place. AdvertisementAdvertisementScraping and cutting of these bones left traces "that can only be attributed to human action," Martínez Sánchez said. "The actions of fragmenting and manipulating the bones may well be related to specific ritual events performed inside the cave," Martínez Sánchez said. "They're often viewed as sort of passageways to another world to the ancestors, to other kinds of worlds that are seen as sacred liminal spaces, spaces that are somewhere in between the land and the living and the land of the ancestors," she said. There's a chance they may have disturbed the human remains as well.

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Persons: Cueva, los, Rafael, Martínez, Katina Lillios, wasn't, Martínez Sánchez, Lillios, It's, There's Organizations: Service, University of Cordoba, University of Iowa Locations: Spain, Wall, Silicon, Iberia, Western Europe