Petalpusher
07-28-2015, 08:52 AM
Archaeology students have unearthed what is understood to be the oldest human body part ever found in France - a tooth from 560,000 years ago. Researchers have hailed it as a "major discovery".
http://www.thelocal.fr/userdata/images/article/w468/528701bfdcbdbdd1e36e0c5e7dad0272e0ea3f77d11ea2bf6c 07031cf6952f07.jpg
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/languedoc-roussillon/sites/regions_france3/files/styles/top_big/public/assets/images/2015/07/27/dent_1.jpg?itok=EC_i2HIX
The tooth was found by students who were working voluntarily in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, in the Pyrénées-Orientales département in southern France.
The site is already famous in archaeological circles as it was there that the Tautavel Man was discovered, a 450,000-year-old Homo Erectus.
The tooth, which was uncovered on Thursday, predates the Tautavel Man by 100,000 years.
"A large adult tooth -- we can't say if it was from a male or female -- was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told the AFP news agency.
In 2011, researchers at the cave discoverd a baby tooth, suggesting Homo heidelbergensis, probably the ancestor of Homo sapiens in Africa and the Neanderthals in Europe, led a family life in the cave.
http://www.thelocal.fr/20150728/french-archaeologists-find-560000-year-old-human-tooth
http://www.thelocal.fr/userdata/images/article/w468/528701bfdcbdbdd1e36e0c5e7dad0272e0ea3f77d11ea2bf6c 07031cf6952f07.jpg
http://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/languedoc-roussillon/sites/regions_france3/files/styles/top_big/public/assets/images/2015/07/27/dent_1.jpg?itok=EC_i2HIX
The tooth was found by students who were working voluntarily in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, in the Pyrénées-Orientales département in southern France.
The site is already famous in archaeological circles as it was there that the Tautavel Man was discovered, a 450,000-year-old Homo Erectus.
The tooth, which was uncovered on Thursday, predates the Tautavel Man by 100,000 years.
"A large adult tooth -- we can't say if it was from a male or female -- was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550,000 and 580,000 years old, because we used different dating methods," paleoanthropologist Amelie Viallet told the AFP news agency.
In 2011, researchers at the cave discoverd a baby tooth, suggesting Homo heidelbergensis, probably the ancestor of Homo sapiens in Africa and the Neanderthals in Europe, led a family life in the cave.
http://www.thelocal.fr/20150728/french-archaeologists-find-560000-year-old-human-tooth