Combe Grenal, also known as Combe-Grenal, is an

archeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

consisting of a collapsed cave and a slope deposit near Domme, Dordogne in Dordogne, France. It dates back to c. 130,000 to 50,000

Before Present Before Present (BP) years, or "years before present", is a time scale used mainly in archaeology, geology and other scientific disciplines to specify when events occurred relative to the origin of practical radiocarbon dating in the 1950s. Becau ...

(BP). First described by François Jouannet in 1812, it was again briefly described by

Édouard Lartet Édouard Lartet (15 April 180128 January 1871) was a French geologist and paleontologist, and a pioneer of Paleolithic archaeology. Biography Lartet was born near Castelnau-Barbarens, ' of Gers, France, where his family had lived for more than ...

and

Henry Christy Henry Christy (26 July 1810 – 4 May 1865) was an English banker and collector, who left his substantial collections to the British Museum. Early life Christy was born at Kingston upon Thames, the second son of William Miller Christy of Woodbi ...

in "Cavernes du Perigord" published in ''

Revue archéologique ''La Revue Archéologique'', published in Paris is one of the oldest, longest-running scientific journals. First appearing in 1844, it is neither the organ of an institution nor of any school, but has complete independence, under the guidance of i ...

'' in 1864. In the 1930s, D. and E. Peyrony did excavations, but the cave was first thoroughly excavated by François Bordes from 1953 to 1965. The site's stratigraphic sequence is 13 meters in depth and has 64 layers (65 layers in some sources). 55 layers are

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...

while the 9 layers near the bottom are

Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...

.Françoise Le Mort (1989
Traces de décharnement sur les ossements néandertaliens de Combe-Grenal (Dordogne)
''Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française'' Volum 86, No. 3, pp. 79-87 The oldest layers dates back to the end of the

Riss glaciation The Riss glaciation, Riss Glaciation, Riss ice age, Riss Ice Age, Riss glacial or Riss Glacial (german: Riß-Kaltzeit, ', ' or (obsolete) ') is the second youngest glaciation of the Pleistocene epoch in the traditional, quadripartite glacial classi ...

and the youngest to the

Würm glaciation The Würm glaciation or Würm stage (german: Würm-Kaltzeit or ''Würm-Glazial'', colloquially often also ''Würmeiszeit'' or ''Würmzeit''; cf. ice age), usually referred to in the literature as the Würm (often spelled "Wurm"), was the last g ...

. The oldest

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...

remains was found in layer 60. There are also found remains in level 39 and 35. Most remains are found in level 25 which includes 24 cranial and post-cranial specimen estimated to date to about 75,000–65,000 years BP. In 2009, part of an

incisor Incisors (from Latin ''incidere'', "to cut") are the front teeth present in most mammals. They are located in the premaxilla above and on the mandible below. Humans have a total of eight (two on each side, top and bottom). Opossums have 18, wher ...

belonging to a child about 3 three years old (estimate 2–4 years) (Combe-Grenal Hominid 31) was discovered in layer 60. Estimated to be 130,000 years, this is the oldest human fossil in the region

Aquitaine Aquitaine ( , , ; oc, Aquitània ; eu, Akitania; Poitevin-Saintongeais: ''Aguiéne''), archaic Guyenne or Guienne ( oc, Guiana), is a historical region of southwestern France and a former administrative region of the country. Since 1 Janu ...

. Archeologist

Lewis Binford Lewis Roberts Binford (November 21, 1931 – April 11, 2011) was an American archaeologist known for his influential work in archaeological theory, ethnoarchaeology and the Paleolithic period. He is widely considered among the most influ ...

found that some stone tool cut marks on the jaw remains of reindeer, red deer and horses at Combe Grenal were similar to cut marks on

caribous Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subsp ...

jaws that contemporary

Nunamiut The Nunamiut or Nunatamiut ( ik, Nunataaġmiut, , "People of the Land") are semi-nomadic inland Iñupiat located in the northern and northwestern Alaskan interior, mostly around Anaktuvuk Pass, Alaska. History Early Nunamiut lived by hunting carib ...

s hunted in Alaska. The Nunamiuts made the cut marks in order to get out the tongue and Binford assumed the Neatherthals left the marks for similar reason. Early wood structure perhaps with

thatched roof Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

was indicated in Mousterian layers.Use of plants in the European Palaeolithic: a review of the evidence; Quaternary Science Reviews, Vol. 2, pp. 53 81, 1983. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/Hort_306/reading/reading%202-2.pdf

References

{{Navbox prehistoric caves 1812 archaeological discoveries Prehistoric sites in France Combe Grenal Mousterian Neanderthal sites

See also

References