Scientists Found a 650-Year-Old Shoe in a Vulture Nest Along with Dozens of Other Curiosities

Vultures Stashed Sandals and Other Archaeological Artifacts in Their Nests Around 675 Years Ago

Learn more about the bearded vulture, which historically accumulated human-made materials such as strings, baskets, and bolts in the cliffs of southern Spain.

Historic Artifacts Recovered from Vulture Nests in Spain - Archaeology Magazine

Bearded vulture CIUDAD REAL, SPAIN—According to a Phys.org report, scientists led by Antoni Margalida of the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research used archaeological techniques to analyze the layers of 12 bearded vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) nests in the mountains of southern Spain, where the birds have been extinct for between 70 and 130 years. Such large nests are constructed by territorial raptors, and are known to be reused over generatio…

Scientists Found a 650-year-old Shoe in a Vulture Nest Along with Dozens of Other Curiosities

Researchers in Spain were left feeling a mixture of confusion and intrigue when they found several straw sandals embedded in a bearded vulture nest. They didn’t know it at the time, but it was over 6 centuries ago that a bearded vulture flew from its hunting grounds into a sheltered cave nesting site and dropped […] The post Scientists Found a 650-year-old Shoe in a Vulture Nest Along with Dozens of Other Curiosities appeared first on Good News …

650-year-old sandal and other medieval artifacts found in centuries-old vulture nests in southern Spain

Archaeologists in southern Spain have discovered over 200 human-made artifacts inside centuries-old bearded vulture nests, revealing how these birds inadvertently preserved traces of medieval life. The results, published in Ecology, are based on 12 abandoned cliffside nests previously occupied by the bone-eating raptor Gypaetus barbatus, which disappeared from the area around a century ago. Between […]