A cellar with a paved floor beneath a home is an almost unheard of feature for the Neolithic period.
Members of the Funnel Beaker Culture (around 4000 BCE) created the cellar on the island of Falster in southeast Denmark, where workers stumbled on the remains of ancient homes while extending a railway in the area.
When archaeologists began to excavate the area they found holes and pits they determined had held up walls and posts from two houses, built on the same spot at different times. The archeologists found a large number of pebbles packed together in a way that made it obvious it was done by humans. They had found the ancient remains of a paved floor, measuring around 5 feet by 6.5 feet (2 meters by 1.5 meters).
It’s unclear what the room may have been used for, but storing food in a cool environment seems like a good bet. Remnants of fences suggest the site was fortified, making it unlikely to have been a simple home. Instead, it may have served as a gathering place and trading post, where people exchanged goods and possibly formed alliances.
You can read the original article at gizmodo.com