Le Moustier

▪ anthropological and archaeological site, France

      paleoanthropological and archaeological site in the Dordogne region of southwestern France that has yielded important Neanderthal remains. In the 1860s the upper cave in the cliff face at Le Moustier yielded a rich assemblage of stone tools from the Paleolithic Period, and it thereby became the type site of the Mousterian industry. The lower cave, excavated in the early 20th century, contained a long sequence of Paleolithic archaeological levels. Two immature Neanderthal fossils recovered there have provided paleoanthropologists with significant information on Neanderthal biology, especially growth patterns.

      The first skeleton, discovered in 1908, is that of an adolescent. Designated Le Moustier 1, it includes most of the skull and several of the major long bones. Le Moustier 2, discovered in 1914, is the largely complete skeleton of a newborn. Both date to between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago. Analysis of these fossils has helped establish that various features diagnostic of adult Neanderthals became obvious at different stages of development. For example, the infant's skeleton, when compared with modern humans of the same age, already exhibits facial proportions that would eventually form the pronounced midface projection and swept-back cheek regions of the adult Neanderthal. The adolescent skeleton exhibits the large front teeth, the projecting midface, and the long, low, rounded braincase of the adult Neanderthal. Its limb bones, although small, are already robust; its brow region, however, is only slightly developed.

      The skeletons have had adventurous existences since being discovered. Le Moustier 1 was sold to a German museum by a Swiss antiquities dealer, disappeared after World War II, and reappeared in material from St. Petersburg in the 1950s. Le Moustier 2 was lost soon after its 1914 excavation but was reidentified in 2002 after being found in a Dordogne museum.

Erik Trinkaus

 

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