The boy, aged seven, made the gruesome discovery on Monday when he was playing behind the gymnasium of his school in Chilly-Mazarin, just south of Paris, and noticed a jar poking out of the earth, a police spokeswoman said.
He dug out the liquid-filled jar and saw the partially decomposed fingers inside.
“With time the jar must have risen to the surface and the fingers were found in well-preserved condition,” the police spokeswoman said.
The boy’s father called local police, who set out to track down the origin of the severed digits.
Following local media reports on the story, police received a telephone a call from a person whose grandfather, a woodworker, used to live near the gymnasium and lost four of his fingers 30 years ago in a work accident.
At the time, his fingers could not be surgically reattached so the carpenter put them in a jar full of alcohol and buried them near his home, the police spokeswoman said.
The carpenter, who is still alive, has since moved away, and police were trying to contact him on Wednesday.
