Pluridisciplinary evidence for burial for the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal child

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

Documents

  • Antoine Balzeau
  • Alain Turq
  • Sahra Talamo
  • Camille Daujeard
  • Guillaume Guérin
  • Welker, Frido
  • Isabelle Crevecoeur
  • Helen Fewlass
  • Jean-Jacques Hublin
  • Christelle Lahaye
  • Bruno Maureille
  • Matthias Meyer
  • Catherine Schwab
  • Asier Gómez-Olivencia

The origin of funerary practices has important implications for the emergence of so-called modern cognitive capacities and behaviour. We provide new multidisciplinary information on the archaeological context of the La Ferrassie 8 Neandertal skeleton (grand abri of La Ferrassie, Dordogne, France), including geochronological data -14C and OSL-, ZooMS and ancient DNA data, geological and stratigraphic information from the surrounding context, complete taphonomic study of the skeleton and associated remains, spatial information from the 1968-1973 excavations, and new (2014) fieldwork data. Our results show that a pit was dug in a sterile sediment layer and the corpse of a two-year-old child was laid there. A hominin bone from this context, identified through Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) and associated with Neandertal based on its mitochondrial DNA, yielded a direct 14C age of 41.7-40.8 ka cal BP (95%), younger than the 14C dates of the overlying archaeopaleontological layers and the OSL age of the surrounding sediment. This age makes the bone one of the most recent directly dated Neandertals. It is consistent with the age range for the Châtelperronian in the site and in this region and represents the third association of Neandertal taxa to Initial Upper Palaeolithic lithic technocomplex in Western Europe. A detailed multidisciplinary approach, as presented here, is essential to advance understanding of Neandertal behavior, including funerary practices.

Original languageEnglish
Article number21230
JournalScientific Reports
Volume10
Issue number1
Number of pages10
ISSN2045-2322
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Number of downloads are based on statistics from Google Scholar and www.ku.dk


No data available

ID: 253131543