[playht_player width=”100%” height=”90px” voice=”Michael (en-US)”]Researchers found thousands of human and animal bones in an ancient lava tube called Umm Jirsan in Saudi Arabia. Located beneath the volcanic fields of Harrat Khaybar, the hollow cave goes for nearly 0.9 miles, making it the largest lava cave found thus far in Saudi Arabia.

And now, a recent study concluded that those thousands of bones belong to at least 14 types of animals between cattle, horses, camels, and rodents. Also, they found plenty of human remains within the cave:

“Happy to introduce the Umm Jirsan lava tube, Saudi Arabia, in our new paper just out in AAS. This 1.5 km long lava tube is chock-a-block with hundreds of thousands of beautifully preserved animal remains,” reported archaeologist Mathew Stewart.

Hyenas Hoarded The Bones

hyena cave

According to researchers, the most likely scenario behind the thousands of bones is that striped hyenas took them there. In fact, they even found hyena remains and fossilized feces inside the cave.

“By studying the types of bone surface modifications, their frequencies, & locations, we conclude that the bones at Umm Jirsan were brought in by striped hyena. These critters are avid collectors of bones,” the researcher added on a series of follow-up tweets.

“The material at Umm Jirsan has accumulated over the last 7000 years attesting to the excellent conditions for preservation of bone within the lava tube. In a region where bone preservation is very very poor, sites like Umm Jirsan offer an exciting new resource,” he added.

Multiple Suspects

Striped Hyena 4

According to researchers, other animals may have helped gather this huge collection of bones, such as wolves or foxes. Nonetheless, they added that wolves rarely take bones far from the prey’s tomb, and foxes struggle to eat big prey. That, combined with some prints on the bones makes them conclude that striped hyenas are responsible for this.

There are still plenty of things we have yet to discover about Umm Jirsan. Researchers hope that this discovery can help scientists unravel more mysteries of paleoecology and the history of ancient Saudi Arabia.