The piece was discovered by Giovanni Varelli, a PhD student from St John’s College, University of Cambridge, while he was working on an internship at the British Library. He discovered the manuscript by chance, and was struck by the unusual form of the notation. Varelli specializes in early musical notation, and realized that it consisted of two vocal parts, each complementing the other.
There are early writings about how to sing polyphony, but the earliest manuscript we had, the Winchester Troper, is dated around 1000. So this example predates the earliest known manuscript by about 100 years, which in case you were wondering, is a long time.
You can go here to read more about it and actually hear a performance of the newly discovered manuscript.
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