CAMBRIDGE, MA—In a stunning revelation that sheds light on the cultural practices of mankind’s early ancestors, a new study published Friday indicates that ancient humans buried crude oil deep underground in a desperate attempt to protect future generations from the grave threat it posed. “It appears that once they discovered petroleum released noxious gases when burned and produced a fuel that tribes would fight to the death to control, early Homo sapiens panicked and tried to seal the substance below the earth’s surface for all time,” said Harvard University anthropologist Benjamin Kessler, who described cave paintings in the Middle East, Europe, and Africa that depict tribesmen choking on clouds of black smoke and murdering one another while frantically pouring a black substance into a deep hole. “Despite their cognitive limitations, Paleolithic humans could reason well enough to understand this mysterious fuel was plunging their world into chaos, so they used their primitive stone tools and dug as far down as they could, often hiding their oil in remote, inhospitable locations such as deserts or the Arctic wilderness. Of course, they assumed no person would ever be foolhardy enough to unseal the unspeakable evil they had buried.” Kessler went on to stress that on hundreds of occasions over the past 50,000 years, a group of humans has failed to heed the warnings of their elders and dug up the hidden oil, causing the long-prophesied cycle of war, pollution, and reburial to play out all over again.