If they were contemporary and hybridized, the cultural links between H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis remain fragmented. A recent study reports the discovery of a French cave in which representatives of these two species would have, if not rubbed shoulders, at least succeeded on several occasions.
You will also be interested
[EN VIDÉO] Learn to carve flint like in prehistory Flint knapping holds an important place in Mesolithic society, the prehistoric period. It was at this time that she benefited from the arrival of a new technique using a soft striker. Discover, during this video from Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research), how the first humans fashioned their tools.
How to know what were the human migrations during Prehistory? The aim is to retrace the chronology of displacements thanks to the dating, absolute or relative, of archaeological and human remains identified on different sites. In recent years, the rehabilitation ofHomo neanderthalensis as an intelligent human species with complex behaviors and cultures has made it possible to arouse the enthusiasm of the general public for this cousin and contemporary ofHomo sapiens.
Among the questions that still agitate the scientific community are in particular those of the exchanges, cultural but also genetic that may have existed between H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis before this last species disappears definitively from the surface of the Globe. A recent study published in the journal Science Advances reports the discovery of traces ofH. sapiens contemporaneous with those ofH. neanderthalensis in France and thus proves the arrival of modern man in Europe much earlier than what had been published until then.
A succession of occupations
In this study, the authors report that H. sapiens appeared in Africa more than 300,000 years ago, that its traces were later found in Israel (between 194,000 and 177,000 years ago), in East Asia (80,000 years ago) and in Australia (there 65,000 years ago). The arrival ofH. sapiens is later, probably due to the presence of Neanderthal or ecological barriers in this region. Traces ofH. sapiens were therefore found in Italy and Bulgaria between 45,000 and 43,000 years ago.
The arrival ofH. sapiens is later, probably due to the presence of Neanderthals or ecological barriers
In addition, remains of Neanderthals and their Mousterian technology in Europe date back respectively to between 42,000 and 40,000 years ago and between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago. However, the authors of the study published in Science Advances report the discovery of remains of modern humans in the cave de Mandrin, near the town of Malataverne, in the south of France. These remains consist of tooth fragments or whole teeth and belong to at least seven different individuals and are distributed over distinct layers.
The shape analysis of dental crowns as well as technologies makes it possible to determine that H. neanderthalensis was replaced in Mandrin Cave by H. sapiens about 54,000 years ago.
Neanderthal then reoccupied Cave 51,700 years ago until a return of modern man, between 44,100 and 41,500 years ago. This study therefore shows that Neanderthals and modern humans successively occupied the same cave and that the middle of the Rhone Valley was an important natural corridor for movement between the Mediterranean basin and northern Europe. The authors have also dated the remains ofH. sapiens between 56,800 and 51,700 years ago, more than 10,000 years before what had been estimated until then. The alternation of the occupations of the cave by the two species further shows that the disappearance of Neanderthals in Europe therefore occurred more than 10,000 years after the arrival ofH. sapiens In the region.
Interested in what you just read?