STOCKHOLM: The remains of a pregnant Stone Age woman and her unborn child, believed to be around 9,000 years old, have been discovered in a cave on a small island in Sweden.

Archaeologist Alexander Roesen Sjöstrand, an independent researcher connected to Uppsala University, described the find as very unusual. It was made in a cave on a small island off the coast of Gotland, which he has been excavating since 2023.

Sjöstrand and a fellow researcher had reached the cave’s deepest layer, dating to the Stone Age, when they uncovered the remains of a young woman who appeared to have been buried in some fashion, with a remarkably well-preserved foetus still in her womb.

The team estimates the remains at between 7,000 and 10,000 years old, most likely around 9,000, based on the layer in which they were found. Carbon dating will be carried out to establish a firmer age.

The significance runs beyond the age of the bones. According to Sjöstrand, the presence of a pregnant woman on the island so long ago indicates that people were actually living there shortly after it emerged from the Baltic Sea following the last ice age — not merely passing through as part of an exploration party.

That distinction, he said, offers a rare window into how exploration was conducted and how hunter-gatherer communities of the Stone Age moved around and settled new ground.