New discoveries in a French cave reveal coexistence between modern humans and Neanderthals
A recent study published in Science Advances suggests that Homo sapiens may have reached Europe around 54,000 years ago, a full 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.
This discovery was made thanks to artifacts found in a cave in southern France, where modern humans and Neanderthals are believed to have coexisted for thousands of years.
A recent study published in Science Advances revealed that Homo sapiens may have reached Europe around 54,000 years ago, a full 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.
This discovery was made thanks to artifacts found in a cave in southern France, where modern humans and Neanderthals are believed to have coexisted for thousands of years.
According to a team of international researchers, led by Ludovic Slimak and Clément Zanolli of the Center national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Homo sapiens and Neanderthals inhabited the Mandrin cave in the Rhônetal, near Montélimar, in different phases.
This suggests that Neanderthals did not disappear immediately after the arrival of modern humans, but that the two species coexisted for almost 15,000 years in the same region.
Until now, researchers believed that the first modern humans reached Europe around 45,000 years ago, as indicated by finds in Bulgaria and Italy. A few millennia later, around 40,000 years ago, the Neanderthals disappeared from the region.
However, new discoveries in Mandrin Cave suggest a different chronology.
Slimak’s team excavated twelve layers of artifacts in the cave, which contained over 100,000 animal remains and stone tools.
These layers cover a depth of three meters and reveal an alternating coexistence between modern humans and Neanderthals.
The tools found, like those shown in Ludovic Slimak’s photo, indicate that modern humans inhabited the cave at that time.
The study, entitled “Modern human incursion into Neanderthal territories 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France“, was published in Science Advances and aroused the interest of the scientific community.
However, an independent expert expressed skepticism about the team’s conclusions.
Mandrin Cave, located near the town of Malataverne, dominates the eastern bank of the Rhone Valley at an altitude of 225 meters.
The excavations, which began in 1990, revealed a three-meter-deep stratigraphic sequence containing twelve archaeological layers, ranging from the marine isotope 5 period to the end of the Middle Paleolithic and the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic.
These layers are well preserved and have provided a rich archaeological collection, including almost 60,000 lithic objects and over 70,000 faunal remains, dominated by horses, bison and deer.
In particular, the E layer contains a notable industry characterized by standardized tips, some measuring only 1 cm in length.
These spikes represent a substantial technological difference from all Mousterian industries in the Mandrin sequence.
Because of the distinctive features of this assemblage and similar ones found in contemporary levels at nearby sites, it has been given a new cultural attribution: the “Neronian.”
Until now, the Neronian industry had not been documented anywhere as ancient as Mandrin, and its creators had not been identified.
The human remains found in Mandrin Cave include nine teeth, representing a minimum of seven individuals.
Ancient DNA analyzes were initially conducted on horse fossil material excavated throughout the stratigraphic sequence to assess the level of DNA preservation and whether it was justified to attempt to recover DNA from human remains to identify population affiliation.
However, the overall conservation signal of horse material has advised against sampling human remains at this time.
This discovery could change our understanding of the interaction between modern humans and Neanderthals in Europe and provide new insights into their coexistence and the technologies they used.
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