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The discovery of a milk tooth in a cave in the French region of Drôme showed that modern man arrived on European soil many years before what was recorded and that he even cohabited with Neanderthals. Archaeologists called the discovery “revolutionary.”
A study published in ‘Science’ affirms that the existence of Homo Sapiens in Europe dates back many years before what is currently believed. The discovery of a milk tooth in a cave in Drôme, in France, certified that the evolution of modern man shared spaces with the Neanderthals.
The archaeological body that made the discovery described this event as “revolutionary” for history. Fossils and tools from the Mandrin cave, in the Rhône river, support the facts reported by scientists.
Archaeological discoveries to date recorded that Neanderthals stopped inhabiting the European continent shortly after the appearance of Homo Sapiens and there was no evidence that both species had shared the same territory.
However, research led by Ludovic Slimak, a professor at the University of Toulouse and a specialist in Neanderthal societies, dates back the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe to approximately 54,000 years. Another noteworthy piece of information is that he confirms that they occupied the Mandrin cave together with the Neanderthals, whom the Sapiens replaced as the definitive form of the human being.
Drome, in the south of France, is a site excavated since 1990 where archaeological explorations are carried out that can investigate the occupation of the place up to 80,000 years ago. Slimak, in dialogue with the AFP agency, explained that “everything is extremely well preserved.”
The appearance of 1,500 flint points cut in a style similar to the shapes of arrows, a technique alien to Neanderthal subjects, was the kick to weigh the possibility that homo sapiens inhabited Europe early.
These samples were identical to a collection of fossils from a site at Ksar Akil, in Lebanon, which remain in the Peabody Museum at Harvard, and gave rise to the theory that Mandrin was the first space where modern man appeared on European soil.
The researchers found nine teeth in good condition belonging to six individuals, but only one milk tooth was from a Sapiens, according to paleoanthropologist Clément Zanolli, from the University of Bordeaux, who was in charge of doing the sample procedure with a microtomography .
The discovery of an ancient tooth in France has pushed back the arrival of modern humans in western Europe by 10,000 years.
Watch Museum scientist Prof Chris Stringer (@ChrisStringer65) explain what this means for our understanding of Homo sapiens 👇 pic.twitter.com/b9N7vuZcQa
— Natural History Museum (@NHM_London) February 9, 2022
“At some point the two populations coexisted in the cave or in the same territory,” Slimak concluded. He supposes that the Neanderthal could have acted as a guide for the Sapiens and trusts that the door has been opened to another series of discoveries about the samples obtained in the Mandrin.
Professor Chris Stringer, co-author of the study and a specialist in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, assured that the appearance of evolved humans and the disappearance of Neanderthals “is much more complex” than previously believed. In addition, he understands that the overlap of both will be key to explaining “why we became the only human species left.”
with AFP