| Homo erectus tautavelensis | |
|---|---|
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Family: | Hominidae |
| Genus: | Homo |
| Species: | † H. erectus |
| Trinomial name | |
| † Homo erectus tautavelensis de Lumley and de Lumley 1971[1] |
|
| Site of discovery in Tautavel, France | |
Homo erectus tautavelensis is a homonid subspecies of Homo erectus, the 450,000 years old fossil remains of whom have been discovered in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, France.The excavations began in 1964 , the first notable discovery of these in 1969.[2]
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Marcel de Serres (1828) was the first person to find archaeological objects at the location (bones). Jean Abelanet (1963) found tools, a discovery that initiated the Lumley excavations (1964).[3]
The skeletal remains of two individual hominids has been found in the cave: (Arago II, July 1969) a female older than forty, and (Arago XXI, July 1971, and XLVII, July 1979) a male aged no more than twenty.[1] Recovered stone tools originate from within a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) radius of the cave, while animal bones suggest the inhabitants could travel up to 33 kilometres (21 mi) for food.[4]
All fossils recovered from Arago were found by Henry and Marie-Antoinette de Lumley and are now located at the Institute for Human Palaeontology in Paris. Arago II is a nearly complete mandible with six teeth from a 40-55 years old female. Arago XXI is a deformed cranial fragment featuring the most complete pre-Neanderthal face accompanied by a frontal and a sphenoid bone. Arago XLVII is a right parietal bone, the sutures of which fits perfectly with Arago XXI. The two latter have an estimated developmental age of twenty, while an uranium series dating produced a fossil age of c.400,000 years (this is near the maximum limit for this method and the fossil may be older.)[1] The male skull has a flat and receding forehead with well-developed supraorbital ridges ("eyebrows") and a large face with rectangular eye sockets. The cranial cavity had a volume of 1,150 square centimetres (178 sq in). The rest of the skeleton has been reconstructed from 75 fossil remains and casts from fossils found at other sites; an interpretation suggesting in a sturdier skeleton that in modern humans and a height of 1.65 metres (5 ft 5 in).[5][6]
Through the thousands of years from the time that Arago XXI died, changes occured to the structure of the bone called " Taphonomic transformations" (Subsol et al) modifying the shape of skull.These had caused parts of the bone to become slightly bent [Ponce de León & Zollikofer 1999], including the front of the skull to lose symmetry (Mafart., et al 1999).Three-dimensional imaging using computers allowed a morphometric analysis of the skull and this was used to compare with skull dimensions of homo sapiens sapiens and also to obtain a computer generated image of the hominids face. [7] Compared to H. erectus in North Africa and China, H. erectus tautavelensis is closer to early H. sapiens and thus form a morphologically distinct group together with other European Middle Pleistocene hominids found in Steinheim, Swanscombe, and Pontnewydd, because they show some of the characteristics of Neanderthals. The oldest indirect evidence of hominids in Europe are date to perhaps 1 to 2 million years ago and while Arago is certainly younger, the stalagmite floor under the cave deposits has been ambiguously dated to 700,000 years old by electron spin resonance but to 300,000 years old by thermoluminescence. No signs of fire, ash, charcoal, burned stone, or clay is documented in the cave which seems to suggest the art of fire is a recent discovery, though traces at a 1 to 4 million years old erectus site in East Africa indicate the opposite.[8]
The people of the cave ate elk, fallow deer, reindeer ,musk ox, bison, Bonal Tahr (Hemitragus), [9] argali, chamois and Stephanorhinus kirchbergensis.[8][10][11] Bones of Cervus elaphus acoronatus and Cervus elaphoids, two species of deer, Canis etruscus (wolf), and Ursus deningeri , were the most found animal remains in reducing order of number of findings by percentage in the interglacial stage, in the glacial stage the most were Equun mosbachensis (horse)[12] and Ovis ammon antiqua (non-extant mouflon), (plus C.e. acoronatus), and additionally remains of Hemitragus bosali (Jourdan and Moigne;1981) [13]
The cave is of the earliest known from the middle Pleistocene to archaeology of the Pyreness.[14]Scraper and chopper tools found within the cave were of the Tayacian Industry.[15][16]The current cave dimensions are smaller than those from the time when the hominid inhabited the cave, the current measurements being 35 metres long and between 5 to 15 metres wide. [17][18] During 2007 the Institut de Paléontologie de Humaine and the Centre Européen Recherche de Pre-historique de Tautavel, both having charge of the site, contacted the ENSG in order that they construct a three dimensional model of the cave. [18]