He added: 'We were looking to find when the cave was occupied, what was the nature of the occupation by those early hunter-gatherers, where did they go hunting and gathering food, what kind of stone tools they used, what types of bone and antler tools they made and how they used them, whether they made beads and pendants for body decoration, and so on.

'This was a wonderful surprise, to discover these ancient flax fibres at the end of this excavation project.'

The researchers also found remains of animal hair, skin beetles and moths.