An important "rediscovery": the Moustier 2 remains.

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

All,

You may have noticed that the news concerning the "rediscovery" of the Moustier 2 human remains, in the reserves of the revamped National Museum of Prehistory, in Les Eyzies - de - Tayac (Dordogne, France), is presently making the media round. I would just like to mention to those of you who have yet to read, or who are unlikely to have easy access to the recent Nature report dealing with this important "find", that the best and most complete media summary of the story can be found in today's Web issue of "le Monde", at:

http://www.lemonde.fr -- Once you have access to the site, scroll down to the bottom left of the page where you will see the "Sciences" section; just click on the "Un bébé néanderthalien..." title.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Isabelle]

Thanks a lot for that link...I enjoyed reading the article. It's nice to read a sane newspaper article about palaeonthropology and archaeology:-)  

[lagarvelho]

Isabelle and Jacques:

I don't read French(or at least not well enough to try that link), but I did get something reasonably complete at Nature, and it was a very good description.  A fairly good news piece is also available from BBC Online, and you can even get commentary from Real One Audio(if you're interested in downloading that --- it's free, too.  The BBC site has a kind of nice reconstruction of a Neandertal family doing something or other(although I couldn't exactly figure out what).
Anne G

[Alec Christensen]

I just read the Nature article, which is quite brief. The concluding paragraphs stuck in my craw:

The morphology of Le Moustier 2 differs greatly from that of living human neonates, but shows many similarities with the features of juvenile and adult Neanderthals. For example, the left stapes has asymmetrical limbs; there is no infraorbital depression on the maxilla; and the premaxillary suture is fully open on both the palatal surface (accompanied by two interincisive sinuses) and the nasal floor. Also, the zygomatic bone is short in comparison with the length of the frontal process, as in immature Neanderthals; the sagittal profile of the nasal bones is the same as that in adult Neanderthals; and in the dentition, the crowns of the central and lateral upper deciduous incisors are shovel-shaped and biconvex, features that are often evident in Neanderthals.

So far so good. Very interesting, in fact.

This taxonomic diagnosis awaits final confirmation through atomic mass spectroscopic carbon-dating of the skeleton. Nevertheless, the differences between the modern human skeleton and that of Le Moustier 2 bear out the proposed extensive genetic variation between Neanderthals and extant humans.

Huh? How can dating confirm a "taxonomic diagnosis"? Unless, that is, your "taxonomy" is identical with your stratigraphy, and not any underlying biology....

Alec Christensen

[lagarvelho]

Alec:

FWIW, so many workers seem to accept that the "taxonomy" of Neandertals is identical with the "stratigraphy"(yes, yes, I know, it's a little more complicated than *that*), that they just fall back on it when presented with new evidence.

Just my "cynical" opinion,
Anne G

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

I just read the Nature article, which is quite brief. The concluding paragraphs stuck in my craw:

The morphology of Le Moustier 2 differs greatly from that of living human neonates, but shows many similarities with the features of juvenile and adult Neanderthals. For example, the left stapes has asymmetrical limbs; there is no infraorbital depression on the maxilla; and the premaxillary suture is fully open on both the palatal surface (accompanied by two interincisive sinuses) and the nasal floor. Also, the zygomatic bone is short in comparison with the length of the frontal process, as in immature Neanderthals; the sagittal profile of the nasal bones is the same as that in adult Neanderthals; and in the dentition, the crowns of the central and lateral upper deciduous incisors are shovel-shaped and biconvex, features that are often evident in Neanderthals.

So far so good. Very interesting, in fact.

This taxonomic diagnosis awaits final confirmation through atomic mass spectroscopic carbon-dating of the skeleton. Nevertheless, the differences between the modern human skeleton and that of Le Moustier 2 bear out the proposed extensive genetic variation between Neanderthals and extant humans.

Huh? How can dating confirm a "taxonomic diagnosis"? Unless, that is, your "taxonomy" is identical with your stratigraphy, and not any underlying biology....

Alec Christensen

Thanks for these Nature article clippings, and you are certainly right about the last one. I suppose the Editor of Nature and/or the peer reviewers were so distracted by the importance of the "discovery" that they did not feel a need to give much attention to some the paper's curious concluding remarks.

At any rate, I checked the Radiometric database that is being managed by the Institut de Préhistoire et de Géologie du QUaternaire - Bordeaux University -- it can be accessed at:

http://www.iquat.u-bordeaux.fr/Pages/dates.html --

and found references to a series of seven TL dates on the Mousterian layers. They range from 42,500 to 55,800. Assuming that they are relatively accurate and that the Moustier 2 remains fit within this chronological envelope, it is likely that AMS dates would, at the very best, sit at the lower (credible) limit of C14 and, thus, would add little to our understanding of the exact stratigraphic position of the remains within the excavated sequence.

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

FWIW, so many workers seem to accept that the "taxonomy" of Neandertals is identical with the "stratigraphy"(yes, yes, I know, it's a little more complicated than *that*), that they just fall back on it when presented with new evidence.

Just my "cynical" opinion,
Anne G

Well, from one cynic to another, could you, please, provide me (us) with a few actual, somewhat recent examples (i.e, references) of what you are talking about?

Jacques Cinq-Mars

[André Miller]

Primo :
In the article of Le Moustier 2 in LeMonde.fr,
I'm astonished about that quote in french :
"D'autant que le fémur et l'humérus droits, manquants, ont pu être récupérés. Ils avaient été faussement attribués à une autre fouille proche, la Ferrassie. Du coup, ce dernier site, célèbre
pour avoir livré la seule double inhumation connue chez les néandertaliens, perd son originalité."
Translation : "The more so as the fémur and the humérus right, missing, could be recovered. They had been wrongfully allotted to another close excavation, Ferrassie. Blow, this last site, famous
to have delivered only burial known at the néandertaliens doubles, loses its originality."
Anyone have notice that ?

Secundo :
There are two others neandertal child ,or more,   in the "proximate" region of Le Moustier.
1)
Bordes, F. ; LaFille, Jean
Découverte d'un squellette d'enfant moustérien dans le gisement du Roc de Marsal, commune de Campagne-du-Bugues (Dordogne)
Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, séance du 15 janvier 1962

2)
Patte, Ettienne
L'enfant neandertalien du Pech-de-l'Aze. (year ?).

Where are the two others "lost" neandertal child ?
Anyone have an idea ?

[Daryl Habel]

There are two others neandertal child ,or more,   in the "proximate" region of Le Moustier.
1)
Bordes, F. ; LaFille, Jean
Découverte d'un squellette d'enfant moustérien dans le gisement du Roc de Marsal, commune de Campagne-du-Bugues (Dordogne)
Comptes Rendus de l'Académie des Sciences, séance du 15 janvier 1962

2)
Patte, Ettienne
L'enfant neandertalien du Pech-de-l'Aze. (year ?).

Where are the two others "lost" neandertal child ?
Anyone have an idea ?

Regarding the Roc de Marsal skeleton, it seems to be located and on display in the same Les Ezyies museum where the Le Moustier 2 skeleton was rediscovered. See:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/eyzies.html

I don't know about the Pech infant, but I have a fairly recent reference (which I haven't read):

Tillier, A.M. 1996. "The Pech de l'Aze and Roc de Marsal children (Middle Paleolithic, France): Skeletal evidence for variation in Neanderthal ontogeny." In Human Evolution, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 113-119.

Hope this helps,
Dar

P.S.  A quick addition via the "modify" icon.   A couple more (perhaps) useful references:

Heim, J.L. (1982) Les Enfants Néandertaliens de La Ferrassie. Paris: Masson.

Madre-Dupouy, M. (1992). L’Enfant du Roc de Marsal. Paris: C.N.R.S.