A 300,000-Year-Old Swan Eggshell Reveals What the Paleolithic Environment was Like

Some 300,000-year-old eggshells are telling scientists a bit more about the Paleolithic environment. Researchers have uncovered fragments of eggshells from several species of birds that tell them a bit more about the conditions at the time.

In the 1990s, researchers uncovered the oldest human made and completely preserved hunting weapons. They were found within 300,000-year-old deposits on a former lake shore in what is now Lower Saxony. Among the findings were eggshell fragments of various species of birds.

The eggshells are only a few centimeters in width each and are less than a millimeter thick. They were recovered after fine excavations and after researchers sorted the residual finds. They've already been compared with the eggs of today's European birds. By studying the thickness, curvature and the surface texture of the eggshells, the scientists could identify the fragments.

One was similar to the eggshell of the crane, another fragment was from a duck, and three other fragments were similar to those of modern day whooper swans. These birds today breed is sub-arctic-temperate areas such as Iceland, Scandinavia and Siberia. In addition, the landscape is characterized by low vegetation, since the temperature is a few degrees lower than in Central Europe.

The eggshells reveal what the climate might have been like in the region during the time period. It's also likely that the eggs could have played a role in human diet as an important food source for people during spring. It's possible that people sought out the lake shore-to gather eggs to eat when birds were nesting.

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