Tautavel Man
As a man of Tautavel (French Homme de Tautavel ) a group of fossils is called, discovered near the French community Tautavel in the cave of Arago and the genus Homo has been assigned. Occasionally, the term man of Tautavel is also specifically XXI at the most important Fund, quite perfectly preserved skull Arago applied.
The fossils come from different ages Fund layers, their age is reported on absolute dating methods partly with 450,000, some 300,000 years ago. They were to Homo erectus provided by its discoverer, Henry de Lumley and called in honor of the locality as Homo erectus tautavelensis, which refers less to a separate subspecies within the homo- line, but similarly to the Peking Man on the locality.
Today, well a different biological systematics of the genus is represented Homo, which is why the findings from the Arago Cave along with the other European fossils of this age group ( including the lower jaw of wall that remains from the Sierra de Atapuerca / Sima de los Huesos and from the cave of Petralona ) presumably directly from Homo erectus emerged Homo heidelbergensis be attributed.
The salvaged in the Fund layers of fossils stone tools are typically named for the section of the Paleolithic Acheulian.
Important fossils
The excavations in the cave of Arago had begun in 1964 under the direction of Henry de Lumley; they brought to this day several dozen Homo fossils of apparent as well as thousands of fossil animal bones. First of individual teeth were found ( Fossil Arago I), have been identified as belonging to the genus Homo. In the excavation campaign in 1969 but it came then to a well-preserved lower jaw ( Arago II), which was interpreted as a remnant of a 40 to 50 -year-old woman. In 1970, another, a partially preserved lower jaw discovered ( Arago XIII), which is probably attributable to a twenty -year-old man. Both fossils are considered particularly important finds, since so far in Europe from its era, very few mandible were recovered. Best known is the very well-preserved lower jaw of wall, with the Arago XIII shares unique morphological features, from which it was deduced that both finds were part of the same hominin taxon, and this was therefore widely beyond Europe. The other finds from the cave of Arago be attributed to this taxon.
On July 22, 1971, during the excavations revealed another important finding: the Fossil Arago XXI, consisting of a facial skeleton, skull and several parts of the front upper teeth largely preserved. The skull bones were disintegrated under the weight of the overlying rock into numerous fragments and therefore strongly deformed skull. The skull was attributed to a young man who was at the time of death does not older than 30 years. He lived 450,000 years ago, which means that it should be classified in time between the fossils from Atapuerca and the lower jaw of Mauer and the fossil known as Homo steinheimensis. For these European populations of Homo heidelbergensis later Neanderthals emerged.
Among the major findings from the cave of Arago also include well-preserved bones from the region of the pelvis as well as fragments of the femur, which allowed a reconstruction of the height of the people of Tautavel: Today it is specified at 1.60 up to 1.65m.
The environment 450,000 years ago
450,000 years ago, the climate in today's southern France was dry and cold, which is also detectable on the basis of the fossil layers of dust in the cave of Arago. The valley of Tautavel belonged to a steppe area through which - according to the fossil record in the cave - bison, horses and rhinoceroses attracted, but also reindeer. Fossil is busy also, inter alia, the existence of Tahren ( Hemitragus Bonali ), cave bear (Ursus deningeri ), wolves (Canis etruscus ), wild dog ( Cuon priscus ) and cave lion (Panthera leo spelaea ). People have inhabited the cave thus alternating with predators.
" The nutritional basis of the large predators and the people were the herbivorous animals. Prove which is found during the excavations waste of them that they were consumed (...). It is not possible to prove in what way they were hunted. " Since no hearths were discovered, must be assumed that the people of Tautavel could still make no fire. There were, however, discovered in the cave of Arago hundreds of stone tools, as they are characteristic of the Old Acheulean. Since the exact origin of these artifacts could be clarified in many cases, the researchers now believe that the people of Tautavel resided within a radius of about 30 kilometers to the cave of Arago.
Gallery
Musée de Prehistory of Tautavel: stone tools from the cave of Arago
- Length about 12 cm
- Length about 12 cm
- Length about 6/10 cm
- Length about 3-4 cm (left of rock crystal )
Musée de Prehistory of Tautavel: reconstructions of finds
- Find situation of a cave bear (Ursus deningeri )
- Find situation of the fossil Arago 48
- Find situation of a reindeer
- Reconstruction of an " Homme de Tautavel "