© Emmanuel Roudier
Reconstruction of the child's burial by Neandertals at La Ferrassie.
Was burial of the dead practiced by Neandertals or is it an innovation specific to our species? There are indications in favour of the first hypothesis but some scientists remain sceptical. For the first time in Europe, however, a multi-disciplinary team led by researchers at the CNRS and the
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle (France) and the University of the Basque Country (Spain)
1 has demonstrated, using a variety of criteria, that a Neandertal child was buried, probably around 41,000 years ago, at the Ferrassie site (Dordogne). Their study is published in the journal
Scientific Reports on 9th December 2020.
Dozens of buried Neandertal skeletons have been discovered in Eurasia, leading some scientists to deduce that, like us, Neandertals buried their dead. Other experts have been sceptical, however, given that the majority of the best-preserved skeletons, found at the beginning of the 20th century, were not excavated using modern archaeological techniques.
It is within this framework that an international team
1 led by paleoanthropologists Antoine Balzeau (CNRS and
Muséum national d'histoire naturelle, France) and Asier Gómez-Olivencia (University of the Basque Country, Spain), analysed a human skeleton from one of the most famous Neandertal sites in France: the La Ferrassie rock shelter, Dordogne. After six Neandertal skeletons were discovered at the beginning of the 20th century, the site delivered a seventh between 1970 and 1973, belonging to a child of around two years old. For almost half a century, the collections associated with this specimen remained unexploited in the archives of the
Musée d'archéologie nationale.
Comment: If you are 'in bed' with liars, you are being lied to. Perhaps Israel also has a siphon operation tied to the Pentagon budget (the missing billions?)...who knows.