- A human tooth dating back to the Neanderthal was found on August 11 at the foot of the Haut-Garonne Pyrenees by a team of scientists.
- It was located in the Montmaurin massif, very rich in prehistoric remains but neglected for decades by archaeologists.
- This incisor, whose root is intact, is far from having revealed all its secrets.
“The discovery of a human remains is always good news”. Said like that, concerning what more is a find made in the uninviting cave of Cut-Throat, the assertion has something to give goosebumps. But in the words of Amélie Vialet, lecturer in paleoanthropology, it becomes "exciting".
The fossil in question is in fact a tooth, very yellow, with a spectacular root length. It was unearthed on August 11 in the limestone massif of Montmaurin, south-west of Toulouse. This corner of the foothills of the Pyrenees has enjoyed world archaeological renown since the Venus de Lespugue, the undisputed star of the Musée de l'Homme, was unearthed there in 1922 - in a shelter very close to the Coupe-Gorge d 'elsewhere - and that a human mandible was found there in 1949.
The "happy hand of a geologist"
It must be said that this small limestone promontory at the confluence of two rivers full of fish, sheltered from submersion and at the foot of a steppe trampled in their time by mammoths, wolves or hyenas was a "crossroads of biotopes" said the researcher, a real "spot" on the paths of the wanderings of our nomadic ancestors.
Excavated until the turn of the sixties, the site offers seven meters high strata where human or animal remains, cut flints, provide a panorama of daily life over hundreds of thousands of years. However, archaeologists have turned away from it, magnetized by other more distant discoveries. Until this month of August therefore and the arrival of a team of scientists from the National Museum of Natural History, armed with "brushes, dental tools" and led by Amélie Vialet.
With as a welcome gift, this tooth unearthed from the first days by a “happy hand geologist” who only gave himself to “a cutting refresh” before the start of the excavations themselves planned on 4 m2 only .
Funny place to leave a tooth
So what about this “lower left incisor belonging to an adult individual”? Before a more precise dating using modern techniques, "the stratum where it was found allows us to say that it is a Neanderthal tooth, dating back approximately to 70,000 years", explains the scientist. The tooth "is primitive, worn and abraded on the top". Which corresponds well to the Neanderthal man who abused his teeth by using them for almost everything, including "to tan leather".
The greatest mystery remains the presence of the incisor on a site which is not a priori funeral. Its intact root suggests that it did not break in an accident or during a shock. "Rather that it was brought there after the death of its owner," suggests Amélie Vialet. Did we bring back a tooth of his relatives on the places where they had feasted? “It remains very obscure,” admits the researcher. There are still two summers of excavation in Cut-Gorge cave which probably contains other scientists and other puzzles.
Science
No, Neanderthals was not just a mammoth hunter braving the cold
Science
Prehistory: Men already loved their dogs, buried with them in their graves
- Paleontology
- Toulouse
- Prehistory
- Pyrenees
- Archeology
- Science