Crazy, they get more interesting all the time.
Mysterious Cave Rings Show Neanderthals Liked To Build By CHRISTOPHER JOYCE • MAY 26, 2016 http://ksut.org/post/mysterious-cave-rings-show-neanderthals-liked-build Here's a mystery found in a French cave. It appears that a group of Neanderthals walked into that cave about 176,000 years ago and started building something. Neanderthals were our closest living relatives but they weren't known as builders or cave explorers. Scientists identify the forms as "constructions," but they can't figure out what they were for. It was in 1990 when a French archaeologist first ventured deep into Bruniquel Cave in southwestern France. Spelunkers had just broken through the entrance, which apparently had been obstructed for millennia. The archaeologist traveled deep into the cave, over 1,000 feet. There he discovered something strange — someone had broken stalagmites from the floor and arranged them in two large ovals. But he died before he could fully explore the site. Twenty-three years later, in 2013, a crew of scientists managed to get back to the site. Geologist Dominique Genty with France's National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) was there. "It was very strange," he says, "it was kind of obvious that it was not natural." The team found the circles of stone spikes, almost like 2-foot-high fences. …