The bone fragment identified at Tautavel -

Christian Perrenoud

  • A bone fragment, found eighteen years ago in the Tautavel cave, has been identified as a piece of human fibula, a leg bone, 450,000 years old.

  • It is probably an adult bone, from pre-Neanderthals.

  • The researchers had to try to figure out if it was a human or animal bone.

Eighteen years ago, archaeologists came across a bone, just under six centimeters, in the Tautavel cave, in the Caune de l'Arago (Pyrénées-Orientales).

He had not been able, until then, to be clearly identified.

After (very) long investigations, the researchers were able to determine the origin of this fossil: it is a piece of human fibula, a leg bone, 450,000 years old.

It was then the "hominins, which preceded the Neanderthals", which populated this territory, Homo Heidelbergensis, "from the name of the German province, where was discovered, at the beginning of the 20th century, a mandible of a pre- Neanderthal ”, confides Amélie Vialet, paleoanthropologist and member of the Tautavel research team.

" Very rare "

It is probably an adult bone, "given its dimensions," notes the lecturer at the Museum of Natural History.

But estimating an individual's sex, on the other hand, is very, very difficult.

"If the soils of the Caune de l'Arago are particularly rich in remains," it is very rare to find human bones from this period, in particular because the men who lived more than 100,000 years ago did not bury their remains. dead, ”explains Christian Perrenoud, head of research at Tautavel.

But why did it take so long to identify this tiny bone?

When archaeologists unearth a fossil several tens of centimeters in length, there is a good chance, given its size, that it belongs to a human.

“But when you have a small piece that is only a few centimeters, knowing that there are 122 fossil species described in the cave, we are very careful before claiming that it comes from man, underlines the archaeologist.

You have to see that it comes from humans and not from another animal.

"

The bone has been identified as coming from a 450,000-year-old human fibula - Grotte de Tautavel

"We have the impression that space-time has abolished"

By comparing it, in particular, to the current human skeleton, which still looks a little, despite the weight of millennia, to that of its distant ancestors.

But also by confronting him with other bone fragments, found in Tautavel.

“We have 600,000 objects from excavations, since the beginning, a little over 50 years ago, continues Amélie Vialet.

To make these reconciliations, it can take a long time.

"

This piece of fibula could also belong to an individual whose other bone fragments have already been found.

Faced with such discoveries, marvels the paleoanthropologist, “we feel very privileged, we have the impression that space-time has been abolished.

We are in direct contact with an individual who is 450,000 years old.

We are face to face, with our past.

"

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  • Archeology

  • Perpignan

  • Languedoc-Roussillon

  • Cave

  • Prehistory

  • Science