Man by Tautavel

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The fossil Arago XXI
The fossil Arago I
The mandible fragments:
Arago XIII (left) and Arago II
The Fossil Arago IV:
Two upper jaw fragments (right, top left), replica of the palate with fitted fragments

The human of Tautavel ( French Homme de Tautavel ) is a group of fossils that was discovered not far from the French community of Tautavel in the cave of Arago and assigned to the genus Homo . Occasionally, Tautavel's term human is used specifically to refer to the most important find, the fairly fully preserved Arago XXI skull.

The fossils come from different layers of old found; their age is shown on the basis of absolute dating methods to be 450,000 and 300,000 years. They were followed by its discoverer, Henry de Lumley , to Homo erectus found and in honor of the locality as Homo erectus tautavelensis referred, which is less a separate subspecies within the homo- line, but similar to the Peking Man refers to the locality.

Today, a different biological systematics of the genus Homo is widely represented, which is why the finds from the Arago Cave together with the other European fossils of this age group (including the lower jaw of Mauer , the finds from the Sierra de Atapuerca / Sima de los Huesos and from the Stalactite cave of Petralona ) can be assigned to the species Homo heidelbergensis , which presumably emerged directly from Homo erectus .

The stone tools recovered in the layers of the fossil record are typical of the Acheuléen section of the Paleolithic Age .

Important fossil finds

The excavations in the cave of Arago had begun in 1964 under the direction of Henry de Lumley; to date they have unearthed several dozen homo - fossils and thousands of fossil animal bones. First individual teeth were found (fossil Arago I), which were recognized as belonging to the genus Homo . During the excavation campaign in 1969, however, a well-preserved lower jaw (Arago II) was found, which was interpreted as the remains of a 40 to 50 year old woman. In 1970, another, partially preserved lower jaw was discovered (Arago XIII), which can probably be assigned to a twenty-year-old man. Both fossils are considered to be particularly important finds, as only very few lower jaws have been recovered from their era in Europe. The best known is the very well preserved lower jaw of Mauer , with which Arago XIII shares clear morphological features, from which it was deduced that both finds belonged to the same hominine taxon and that this was therefore widespread across Europe. The other finds from the Arago cave are also assigned to this taxon.

During the excavations on July 22, 1971, another important find came to light: the fossil Arago XXI (see illustration), consisting of a largely preserved facial skull, parts of the front skull and several upper jaw teeth. The skull bones had disintegrated into numerous fragments under the weight of the rock above, and the skull was therefore severely deformed. The skull was attributed to a young man who was not older than 30 years at the time of death. It lived 450,000 years ago, which means that it is located between the fossils of Atapuerca and the lower jaw of Mauer and the fossil known as Homo steinheimensis . The Neanderthals later emerged from these European populations of Homo heidelbergensis .

The important finds from the Arago cave also include well-preserved bones from the area of ​​the pelvis and fragments of thigh bones , which made it possible to reconstruct the height of the people of Tautavel: Today it is given as 1.60 to 1.65 m.

The environment 450,000 years ago

450,000 years ago the climate in what is now southern France was dry and cold, which can also be proven by the fossil layers of dust in the Arago cave. The valley of Tautavel then belonged to a steppe area through which - according to the fossil finds in the cave - bison , horses and rhinos , but also reindeer migrated . Fossil evidence is also u. a. the existence of tahren ( Hemitragus bonali ), cave bears ( Ursus deningeri ), wolves ( Canis etruscus ), wild dogs ( Cuon priscus ) and cave lions ( Panthera spelaea ). The people have therefore populated the cave in alternation with predators.

“The basic food of the large carnivores and humans were the herbivorous animals. The waste they found during the excavations shows that they were consumed (…). It is not possible to prove how they were hunted. ”Since no fireplaces have been discovered, it must be assumed that the people of Tautavel have not yet been able to make a fire. However, hundreds of stone tools were discovered in the cave of Arago , as they are characteristic of the Old Acheuléen . Since the exact origin of these artifacts could be clarified in many cases, the researchers now assume that the people of Tautavel were within a radius of about 30 kilometers from the cave of Arago.

gallery

Distribution area and important sites of the European homo- population at the time of the "people of Tautavel"

Musée de Préhistoire of Tautavel: stone tools from the cave of Arago

  • Length approx. 12 cm

  • Length approx. 12 cm

  • Length approx. 6/10 cm

  • Length approx. 3–4 cm
    (left made of rock crystal)

Musée de Préhistoire of Tautavel: reconstructions of finds

  • Find situation of a cave bear
    ( Ursus deningeri )

  • Find situation of the fossil Arago 48

  • Find situation of a reindeer

  • Reconstruction of a "Homme de Tautavel"

literature

  • Henry de Lumley: L'Homme premier. Prehistoire, evolution, culture. Odile Jacob, Paris 2000, ISBN 2-7381-0866-0 .
  • Henry de Lumley: La Grande Histoire des premiers hommes européens. Odile Jacob, Paris 2007, ISBN 2-7381-1918-2 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ H. de Lumley, M.-A. de Lumley, JL Bada, KK Turekian: The dating of the Pre-Neandertal remains at Caune de l'Arago, Tautavel, Pyrénées-Orientales, France. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 6, 1977, pp. 223-224. ISSN  0047-2484
  2. ↑ H. de Lumley, A. Fournier, YC Park, Y. Yokoyama, A. Demouy: Stratigraphie du remplissage pléistocène moyen de la Caune de l'Arago à Tautavel - Étude de huit carrotages effectués de 1981 à 1983. In: L ' Anthropology. Volume 88, No. 1, 1984, pp. 5-18. ISSN  0003-5521
  3. ↑ S. Lebel: Mobilité des hominidés et système technique d'exploitation des ressources au Paléolithique ancien - la Caune de l'Arago (France). In: Canadian Journal of Archeology . 16, 1992, pp. 48-69. ISSN  0705-2006
  4. ↑ H.de Lumley, A. Camara, V. Geleijnse, J. Krezpkowska, YC. Park, J. Svoboda: Les industries lithiques de l'Homme de Tautavel. In: L'Homme de Tautavel, Dossiers de l'Archéologie, No. 36. Dijon 1979, pp. 60-69. ISSN  0184-7538
  5. ↑ M.-A. de Lumley: L'homme de Tautavel. Critères morphologiques et stade évolutif. In: Henry de Lumley, J. Labeyrie (eds.): Datations absolues et analyzes isotopiques en préhistoire, méthods et limites. Colloque international du CNRS. Tautavel June 22-29, 1981. Paris 1981, pp. 259-264.
  6. ↑ Jeffrey H. Schwartz , Ian Tattersall : Fossil evidence for the origin of Homo sapiens. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. Volume 143, Supplement 51. New York 2010, pp. 94-121 (here p. 101). ISSN  0002-9483 doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.21443
  7. ^ Anne-Marie Moigne: Taphonomie des faunes quaternaires de la Caune de l'Arago, Tautavel. Travaux Universitaires - Thèse de 3e cycle, Paris 1983, abstract .
  8. ^ Daniel Sobler: The Museum of Tautavel. Museum of Tautavel, European Center for Prehistory. Ed. du Castillet-Bachès, Perpignan 1994, 2000 (German edition of the museum guide), p. 22.
  9. ^ H. de Lumley: Les civilizations du Paléolithique inférieur en Languedoc méditerranéen et en Roussillon. In: H.de Lumley (Ed.): La Préhistoire française. Volume I. Les civilizations paléolithiques et mésolithiques. Center national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris 1976, pp. 852-874.
  10. ^ Lucy A. Wilson: Petrography of the Lower Palaeolithic tool assemblage of the Caune de l'Arago. In: World Archeology. Volume 19, No. 3. Abingdon 1988, pp. 376-387. ISSN  0043-8243