A new analysis of the remains of the Lapedo child (Portugal), which was the first evidence of the crossing between Neanderthals and Sapiens, has revealed new details of the burial and has demonstrated the suitability of the radiocarbon dating method with hydroxyproline, which allows analyzing poorly preserved paleolytic samples.
The details of the study, led by archaeologist João Zilhão, of the Archeology Center of the University of Lisbon -who performed a first analysis of the child skeleton when it was discovered -are published this Friday in the magazine ‘Science Advances’.
In 1998, the discovery of this child’s remains, buried in the Lapedo Valley, near the Portuguese town of Leiria, gave worldwide fame to the rocky coat of Lagar Velho.
Although the place was very damaged because it had been used to install a shed, a small area still retained the remains of an ancient serious burial (a culture of Homo Sapiens, during the upper Paleolithic, in the last glacial period).
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The radiocarbon dating of animal bones and vegetable coal recovered from the burial context suggested that the event had taken place between 27,700 and 29,700 years but, after a couple of failed attempts, it was not possible to obtain a reliable date for the skeleton.
The bones of the skeleton, dyed ocher and wrapped in sea shells, belonged to a four or five -year -old individual who presented a “mosaic” of neanderthal and human features anatomically modern, that is, it was the evidence that both human populations had crossed.
According to that first study, the child had a prominent jaw and other facial features inherent in modern man but his body was fornid and his short legs, characteristics of the Neanderthals.
Twenty -seven years later, Zilhão has returned to study the bones of this burial and managed to find out his age: the skeleton has between 27,780 and 28,550 years old.
In addition, its study provides new data from the analysis of five other bones found in burial and underlying contexts.
An offering and five bones
To find out the age of the skeleton, the equipment used radiocarbon dating or carbon-14 but measuring the isotopic ratio only in the carbon present in an amino acid, hydroxiproline, “which abounds in the collagen and in nature and only occurs in the bones,” he tells Efe Zilhão.
The technique allows you to be sure that “the extracted carbon is all endogenous, that is, there is no pollution and that the result obtained reflects the real age of the sample,” says the archaeologist.
With this technique, the team studied a right radius fragment (one of the bones of the child’s arm) and dated his death between 27,780 and 28,550 years.
The authors also analyzed several of the bones present at the place of burial and discovered the remains of a gazapo (a rabbit breed) that had been deposited at the child’s feet as a funeral offering, and two bones of deer pelvis that were older and that had been used to underpin the body.
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Near the place of burial, vestiges of the time were found (GraveTiense), mainly very well preserved animals and that served these men to feed and manufacture tools.
Zilhão underlines the importance of the finding of this skeleton that 27 years ago opened a debate that “has led to the generalized acceptance today that Neanderthals are among our ancestors.”
In addition, the Lapedo child is the only Paleolithic burial of the Iberian Peninsula and one of the few children’s burials known to the upper Paleolithic, and has provided a lot of information about the role of children in the period communities, the researcher highlights.
With EFE information
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