On the tracks of Neandertals: the first study of the footprints from the Late Pleistocene site of Rozel - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Poster De Conférence Année : 2017

On the tracks of Neandertals: the first study of the footprints from the Late Pleistocene site of Rozel

Résumé

Hominin footprints, and more particularly those associated with Neandertals, are very scarce in the fossil record. However, they give a unique point of view on dynamic moments of individuals' life that the fossil remains don't allow to obtain. Moreover, their study enables to get a lot of paleobiological information, for example about the anatomy or the composition of a group but also on the biomechanics of gait. The Middle Paleolithic site of Rozel (Normandy), which was occupied by Neandertals between 85 000 and 65 000 years BP, have yielded over a hundred footprints since 2012 besides its consequent archeological material (stone tools, charcoal, animal remains,...). We report here the results of the first paleobiological study dealing about these footprints. The analyses led according to a wide corpus of comparison and an unpublished methodological development, have shown that the footprints from Rozel are unique in the knowledge of hominin footprints. Indeed, these footprints represent the vast majority of the known footprints associated with Neandertals. Thanks to measures on footprints of anatomically modern humans and on those from Rozel, a minimum number of 9 individuals was determined. Furthermore, using footprint length to stature ratios, these individuals are estimated to have been between 0.69 and 1.86 m in height, suggesting a group of different ages from childhood to adulthood. The knowledge gained constitutes a solid basis from which advanced studies have begun about the biomechanical walking patterns of Neandertals and their mobility.
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Dates et versions

hal-03000267 , version 1 (11-11-2020)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-03000267 , version 1

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Jérémy Duveau, Gilles Berillon, Gilles Laisné, Norbert Mercier, Christine Verna, et al.. On the tracks of Neandertals: the first study of the footprints from the Late Pleistocene site of Rozel. 4th Young Natural History scientists Meeting, Feb 2017, Paris, France. ⟨hal-03000267⟩
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