Teens find oldest human fragment

Discovered last week at Tautavel in the eastern Pyrenees, the tooth could provide an important missing piece in the jigsaw of knowledge about the early human settlement of Europe.

Discovered last week at Tautavel in the eastern Pyrenees, the tooth could provide an important missing piece in the jigsaw of knowledge about the early human settlement of Europe.

Published Jul 30, 2015

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Paris - Two young archaeological volunteers have uncovered the oldest human fragment ever found in France - an adult tooth 550 000 years old.

Discovered last week at Tautavel in the eastern Pyrenees, the tooth could provide an important missing piece in the jigsaw of knowledge about the early human settlement of Europe.

The oldest human body part ever found in Europe, a jawbone uncovered in Germany in 1907, was 600 000 years old. The oldest human remains previously found in France were 450 000 years old.

The tooth, an adult incisor, was found by two teenage volunteers during a dig at the Caune de l'Arago caves at Tautavel near Perpignan. The site is celebrated as the home of Tautavel Man, a 450 000-year-old Homo erectus discovered in 1969.

“A large adult tooth was found during excavations of soil we know to be between 550 000 and 580 000 years old,” said paleoanthropologist Amélie Viallet from the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. “This is a major discovery because we have very few human fossils from this period in Europe.

“It's a missing piece in a puzzle which could help us to answer a crucial question: did the emergence of Neanderthal Man, 120 000 years ago, come from a single human line or not?”

Dr Viallet described the tooth as a “very worn” central incisor from a lower jaw. More than 600 000 prehistoric fragments or objects have been found at the site in the last 50 years.

The French paleoanthropologist, Yves Coppens, said: “Almost certainly, its owner lost the tooth at exactly that spot.”

The Independent

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