Ancient Well Found, Complete with Skeleton

Archaeologists have unearthed a well in Cyprus that is believed to be between 9,000 and 10,500 years old, making one of the earth’s oldest water wells. Debris at the bottom of the well includes the skeleton of a woman.

Pavlos Flourentzos, the nation’s top antiquities official, said the 16-foot deep cylindrical shaft was found last month at a construction site in Kissonerga, a village near the Mediterranean island nation’s southwestern coast.

After the well dried up it apparently was used to dispose trash, and the items found in it included the poorly preserved skeleton of the young woman, animal bone fragments, worked flints, stone beads and pendants from the island’s early Neolithic period, Flourentzos said.

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(image credit: Cyprus Antiquites Department/AP)