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French and Spanish volunteer archaeologists have discovered an "exceptional" child's milk tooth dating back 560,000 years in the mountains of southern France
The fossil was discovered in the cave of 39; Arago, a vast prehistoric cave at Tautavel on the French side. Experts say that the tooth belonged to a child about five years old, and the site's laboratory confirmed that the tooth belonged to a human subspecies, probably homo heidelbergensis, which shares characteristics with both humans Our ancestors homo erectus
"The tooth probably belonged to a child of five or six, who still had his baby teeth but had used many," says Tony Chevalier, paleoanthropologist at the University of Toronto. University of Perpignan and at the research center. to Tautavel
Researchers have until now dated only the soil around the tooth, rather than the tooth itself.
It is estimated that the tooth was 560,000 years old – 5,000 years old – which would make it 100,000 years old when compared to the famous Tautavel man whose skull was found on the same site in 1971.
"Exceptional" because the human remains dating from this period are extremely rare, although some teeth of the time were found previously at Arago Cave.
Knight says that the baby tooth – the first found on the site – would "teach" we have a lot about the behavior of humans at the time.
The tooth was discovered last July and is a record find.
"It is one of the oldest human remains discovered in France, and the eldest of children," said Gael Becam, research professor at the European Center for Prehistoric Research at Tautavel, in the Figaro.
He said that the fact that the tooth had a root meant that the child had died prematurely because it was not old enough for the tooth to break.
None of the individuals found at Tautavel would be our direct ancestor, he said.
'All human remains of Tautavel come from Homo heidelbergensis'.
Homo heidelbergensis lived in Europe, between 650,000 and 300,000 years ago, just before Neanderthal man.
The analysis of the tooth could reveal the secrets of Homo heidelbergensis.
"It's a pretty rare finding," said Becam.
"By analyzing the marks of use on the tooth, we can learn more about their eating habits for example."
amid many animal remains, which indicates that this child and his family ate a lot of meat.
A spokesman for the museum said, "This tooth will be scanned, studied under the microscope, which will help to better understand its development, its food."
Archaeologists hope to find bones in the tooth owner at the end
The tooth will be exhibited at the museum in the future
Researchers have long pondered the question of how people lived in the cave of Tautavel, where some 150 human fossils were discovered
. They have not yet determined whether it was a temporary shelter where our ancestors stopped for a hunting break, or if families made it a more permanent home – a mystery than the milk tooth could help solve.
Tooth belonging to one of the first human species to live in Europe in the French cave.
Anthropologists have described the adult tooth, between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, as a "major discovery." "
It was found buried in rocky soil on the ground of the Arago cave in Tautavel in the Pyrenees-Orientales region in the south of France, by a volunteer archaeologist age 16.
Camille Jacquey discovers the tooth by brushing the sandy soil that filled the floor of the cave.
The cave is the same site where the Remains of the first two men of 450,000 years – a male and a female – of a species called Homo erectus were found about 46 years ago.
Dr. Amelie Viallet, Paleoanthropologist at the Paris Institute of Human Palaeontology who led the excavations, stated that the new discovery was more than 100,000 years old.
the cave had been inhabited by early humans for much longer than originally thought. 9459006]
Dr. Viallet said: "A great adult tooth – we can not tell if it was a man or a woman Earth fossils were found between 550,000 and 580 000 years, because we used different methods of dating.
"It is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils of this period. Europe.
The Tautavel Cave was excavated for about 50 years after the discovery of flint stone tools in the cave.
The remains of a female Homo erectus, who would have been in her forties, were found in 1969 and the remains of a man of about 20 years old. 39 years was discovered later in 1971.
Stone tools and animal bones found in the cave suggested that the men who lived there, nicknamed Tautavel, would go up to 30 miles in search of food and resources
The discovery of the new tooth, which was very worn indicating that it belonged to a relatively older adult, now shows that these Early humans used the cave much sooner than we had imagined.
The remains, however, are not the oldest human fossils to be discovered in Western Europe, since a jaw found in Spain has been dated to 1.2 million years ago.
is also indirect evidence for hominids in Europe date between one and two million years ago.
However, the remains show how much Homo erectus has spread from his ancestral home in Africa.
It is likely that the tooth – an adult incisor – belongs to Homo erectus because it is considered the only species of the precocious human to spread in Europe at this time .
However, tests have yet to be performed on the tooth, which has received the designation Arago 149, to learn more about it
It was found by a Miss Jacquey while she was participating in summer excavation work in the cave.
She was working with another young archaeologist, Valentine Loescher, when they discovered the tooth.
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