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João Zilhão Instituto Português de Arqueologia
The Lagar
Velho site: Lagar Velho is a rock-shelter in the Lapedo valley, a limestone
canyon ca.140 km north of Lisbon in central Portugal where salvage operations
in December-January 1998-1999 were followed by two summer field seasons,
in July 1999, and in June-October 2000. As a result, it has been possible to establish that the site contains three major archaeological  components:
the remnant of a dense settlement layer from Solutrean times exposed by recent
farming; a living floor from the preceding Gravettian era; and the remains
of a four year old child in one side of the Gravettian occupational levels,
the first Paleolithic burial ever found in the Iberian Peninsula.
Fig.1: Map of Neanderthal sites in the Iberian
Peninsula , SW France, and western Mediterranean region (Athena
Review). .
Solutrean layers: The most recent deposits are those of a hanging
remnant of ancient soil layers near the rockshelter, with two main occupation
levels identified there. Level 6, charcoal stained and with abundant burnt
cobbles, contains a faunal assemblage dominated by horse remains and a
Proto-Solutrean artifact assemblage of quartz tools, carinated cores, and
finely-made bone points. Three radiocarbon dates on charcoal samples place
this level between 22,000 and 21,000 BP. A marked discontinuity, corresponding
to an erosional hiatus, separates this unit from overlying Level 9, whose
lithics are fully diagnostic of the Middle Solutrean, with thermally pre-treated
laurel-leaf flint points, and a radiocarbon dateof 20,220±180 years
BP.
Gravettian levels: Lower in the stratigraphy, a settlement area with
dense remains of occupation in the same western part of the site (squares
G-I/3-4), and beginning ca. 1.5 m below the base of the hanging remnant,
is preserved under ground level (fig.2). Testing in the summer of 1999 down
to 3 m depth in square J13 found virtually no artifacts, but scattered fragments
of heavily burnt bone (mostly deer and horse, as well as rabbit) were recovered.
Three statistically identical AMS radiocarbon dates from samples of burnt
bone date the deposit to the period between 23,500 and 23,000 BP.
50 cm further down in the sequence, separated by a level of sterile clays,
an older level of occupation was exposed at the end of the 2000 field season
in squares G-H/3. Given the rates of sedimentation suggested by the above
radiometric results, this lower level may be quite close in age to the major
archaeological event so far documented at the site: the burial of a ca. four
year old child located in the eastern part of the site, in square L20, the
first Paleolithic burial ever found in the Iberian Peninsula. The burial
will be discussed in detail in the following section but the above had to
be established in order to document one of its main features: that it was
placed in a part of the site which is totally devoid of any other remains
of human activity.
Throughout its Gravettian period occupation, the western part of the shelter
was used for ordinary settlement activities. The one burial episode so far
documented took place in the easternmost part of the site, located far away
from the settlement, and separated from the outer edge of the latter by more
than 10 m
of archaeologically empty space. The particular location selected took
advantage of a small recess in the back wall of the shelter that, at the
time of burial, created a protective overhang almost at ground level, forming
a kind of natural niche ready-made to receive the body of the child that
archaeologists eventually catalogued as fossil LV1. However, similar niches
exist in the back wall of the shelter in the area where the living floors
are located. It must be concluded, therefore, that there was an unequivocal
intention to bury the child away from the areas that people used for the
day-to-day living activities carried out in the framework of the site’s
use as a residential or as a logistical place.
Fig.2: Longitudinal section of the Hanging Remnant
at Lagar Velho, and related occupational levels and dates (João
Zilhão).
The LV1 child burial: The area where the burial took place was tested
down to about 2 m below extant ground surface. The deposits contained faunal
elements but were otherwise archaeologically sterile. The faunal assemblage
contained abundant coprolites and bones (horse, deer and rabbit) showing
evidence of gnawing by carnivores. It is quite likely that this part of the
shelter functioned as a wolf den until the time period represented by the
burial event. Pollen analysis of the sequence excavated in square L20, under
the burial, produced a diagram dominated by pine and heather. These results
are compatible with information on the environment of the early Upper Paleolithic
in Portugal obtained from other sources. However, pollen preservation is
always rather poor in these kinds of deposits, so more work needs to be done
before the composition of the site’s surrounding paleovegetation can
be securely reconstructed.
The burial of the Lagar Velho LV1 child (fig.4) lay only a few centimeters
below current ground surface. It was the above mentioned slight overhang
of the shelter’s back wall that saved it from total destruction when
the site was terraced. The skull was missing because it originally lay slightly
higher than the rest of the body and was shattered by the bulldozer. Fortunately,
it was possible to recover most of its fragments, which were scattered in
the thin level of disturbed deposits that covered the burial and surrounding
areas. For the most part they were found in a dense accumulation located
some 3 m eastwards of the burial along the back wall of the shelter. Careful
exacavation and screening of all these disturbed deposits allowed the recovery
of some 160 fragments and, subsequently, the reconstruction of something
like 80% of the total skull. The post-cranial skeleton was virtually complete
as well as the child’s permanent and deciduous dentitions.
The reconstructed burial ritual is very similar to that documented in
contemporaneous funerary contexts of Central and Eastern Europe, showing
that, culturally, these populations were fully integrated in the Gravettian
world. The body was laid down in extended position, slightly tilted towards
the back wall of the shelter, left foot on top of the right one. Prior to
the deposition of the body, a small fire had been lit in the shallow pit
excavated for the grave. Analysis of the charcoal recovered from under the
child’s right leg shows that the burned wood was a single branch of
Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris. The C14 date of ca. 24,900 BP obtained from
this charcoal is, therefore, the closest estimation for the age of the burial
event. An absolute upper limit for such an age is provided by the date of
ca. 23,900 BP obtained on a bone sample collected from a semi-articulated
ensemble of rabbit ribs and vertebrae directly overlying the child’s
right leg.
The red staining of the burial context is related to the use of ochre in
the burial ritual. Since both the upper and the lower surfaces of the bones
were stained, we infer that the body must have been wrapped in a shroud of
ochre-painted skin, whose subsequent decay caused the transfer of the mineral
pigment to the skeleton and surrounding sediment. The presence of a semi-rigid
durable wrap around the body would also have provided the empty space necessary
for the post-mortem plantarflexion or downward pointing, of the child’s
feet.
Artifacts and
animal bones were found in close association with the skeleton. A Littorina
obtusata shell pendant (fig.3) was recovered in the child’s neck. Four
pierced red deer canines were found in the above-mentioned cluster of displaced,
small, red-stained fragments of the child’s skull. The association of
these deer canines with the cranial vault, as in contemporaneous burials
from Italy and Moravia, suggests that they must have been part of a headdress.
Besides the Scots pine charcoal lens, other natural, apparently unmodified
components of the grave may also have been directly related to the burial
ritual. The rabbit bones between the child’s legs - three vertebrae,
four ribs and one sacral  fragment - had a reddish color identical to the
human bones. Two of the ribs were complete, with their proximal epiphyses
preserved, which suggests that, originally, they were articulated to the
vertebrae. The simplest explanation for this association is that part of
the carcass of one rabbit was deposited in the grave, perhaps as a food offering.
Fig.3 Plot of cranial fragments from the child
burial at Lagar Velho , showing the locations of shell pendant and perforated
red deer canines (photos: José Paulo Ruas).
Analysis of the red deer bones found along the edge of the burial pit showed
that they are taphonomically distinct from those found in the surrounding
and immediately underlying sediments. The latter present eroded surfaces,
have a shine that suggests they were chewed and digested by carnivores, often
display actual teeth punctures, and are associated with coprolites. In contrast,
the deer bones found by the head and feet of the child’s skeleton -
two left pelvises, one distal tibia and two tarsal bones - are very well
preserved, show no evidence of carnivore activity, were in contact with the
body, and provided C14 dates showing contemporaneity with the burial event.
Furthermore, no artifacts or other evidence of human habitation activities
were recovered at this level in this part of the shelter. The simplest
explanation for the association is that these bones belonged to parts of
deer carcasses deposited in the grave as food offerings.
The skeletal anatomy of LV1 and its significance: Preliminary descriptions
of the child’s anatomy have already been published. His age at death
is estimated to lie between 3.5 and 5.0 years and there are no indications
of pathological conditions that might have affected normal skeletal development.
During the excavation it was assumed that the skeleton represented that of
a Gravettian early modern human child belonging to a population no different
from those well documented by the numerous contemporary burials from Moravia,
Italy and Russia. This view was initially based on the clear presence of
a very prominent chin.
Further analysis showed that the skeleton also possessed a suite of other
traits that aligned it with the known sample of early modern humans from
Europe and the Near East. For instance, Neanderthals exhibit relatively larger
anterior mandibular teeth than early modern humans. In this regard, the Lagar
Velho child falls in the middle of the early modern human distribution. In
addition, Neanderthals and early modern humans contrast in the relative
proportions of their thumb phalanges, a pattern that is established early
in development among recent humans and at least by late juvenile years in
Neanderthals. Hence, the comparison is relevant, and in this regard too the
Lagar Velho child closely approaches the proportions seen among early modern
humans and is distinct from the Neanderthal pattern.
Other features
of the child’s anatomy, however, suggest clear Neanderthal affinities.
Of paramount importance in this regard are the relatively short lower limb
segments, reflected in the proportions of its tibial length to femoral length.
This ecogeographical proportion, indicating a hyperarctic pattern among the
Neanderthals and a tropical one for the European early modern humans (as
well as the Levantine early modern human Qafzeh-Skhul sample), completely
separates the Neanderthals from  these early modern human groups. The Neanderthals
have proportionately shorter tibiae relative to their femora. These proportions
appear early in development, are well documented for Neanderthal children,
and remain stable for a number of millennia in Late Pleistocene and Holocene
human populations.
Fig.4: Plan of Lagar Velho I burial, showing artifacts
and ecofacts.
These conclusions are the result of extensive research carried out among
both modern and fossil populations and are widely accepted among students
of human evolution. Commentators of the anatomical features of the two-year
old Dederiyeh child from Syria, for instance, have remarked that the presence
of the distinctive Neanderthal body shape in such a young child emphasized
the importance of a genetic component in the development of this feature.
Therefore, there does not seem to be any reason to reject using the tibial
to femoral length proportions of LV1 to indicate its morphological affinities.
And the comparison with a recent human cool temperate sample, with the La
Ferrassie 6 Neanderthal, and with the Levantine early modern Skhul 1 specimen,
shows that the Lapedo child clearly has tibiofemoral proportions in line
with those of the Neanderthals. This is reinforced by the closeness to
Neanderthals shown when robusticity of the leg bones is analyzed using plots
of the femoral and tibial midshaft circumference to length (figs.7,8).
A second feature indicating Neanderthal affinities is the retreat of the
mandibular symphysis, despite the presence of a prominent mentum osseum,
or bony chin. Suggestive of Neanderthal affinities is also the fact that
the left humerus exhibits a prominent ridge along the M. pectoralis major
insertion leading up to the anterior greater tubercle. The proximal humeral
diaphyseal morphology of the child implies hypertrophy of the chest and upper
arm musculature, a pattern seen in Neanderthals but usually little developed
among early modern humans.
It is this morphological mosaic which forms the basis for the interpretation
that LV1 is a modern human child with genetically-inherited Neanderthal traits.
Given its geochronological and geographical position, this indicates that
the population to which it belonged was the evolutionary product of a process
of admixture between Neanderthals and early modern humans occurring several
millennia before, at the time the latter first dispersed into Iberia, 28,000
to 30,000 years ago. Put another way, this unique combination of derived
modern human traits with genetically-inherited Neanderthal traits must be
considered phylogenetically significant and suggests that the last Neanderthal
groups living in Iberia ca. 28,000 years ago contributed to the gene pool
of subsequent early Upper Paleolithic populations of the Peninsula.
Neanderthal-modern admixture and interaction in the empirical record:
However, as is the case elsewhere in Europe, no demonstrably
Neanderthal-modern mixed cultures exist in the Iberian Peninsula. The earliest
Upper Paleolithic industries of Portugal and southern Spain show no Mousterian
influence, and no Upper Paleolithic influence is noticeable in the latest
Mousterian industries from these regions. Although it could be argued that
the lack of evidence for admixture in the cultural realm contradicts the
phylogenetic interpretation of the Lagar Velho child’s anatomy, such
an objection would not be pertinent.
The transmission of cultural traits is a completely distinct process from
the transmission of biological traits. The former depends on human volition:
whether a given technology or behaviour is maintained and taught to the next
generation or replaced by something new is a matter decided upon by individuals
and social groups. No one, however, has the power to decide whether a given
anatomical trait will or will not be transmitted: this is determined by the
rules of sexual reproduction and is the domain of Darwinian natural selection,
which operate independently of any conscious individual or social decisions.
In a scenario of short-lived contemporaneity on a local scale, with extensive
admixture resulting in the quick absorption of one group by another group,
it would not be unexpected to see the culture of the side that predominated
become the culture of the new biologically mixed populations.
Put another way, in such a scenario one can almost predict that the admixture
would be much more visible in the realm of biology than in the realm of culture.
This is all the more so if we bear in mind that, with few exceptions, only
a very small part - stone tools - of past cultural repertoires tends to survive
until the present. In the Iberian case, this is exactly the problem: the
cultural information we have on the situation immediately before and immediately
after the transition is restricted to lithic technology and subsistence
behaviour. The lithics of the Aurignacian of Iberian regions south of the
Ebro show no Mousterian influence. But this tells us very little about the
nature and intensity of the cultural interaction between moderns and Neanderthals
in the realm of myths, beliefs, usages or, more simply, the technology of
perishable materials.
 For the moment,
therefore, we can only work with inferences from the biological facts. And
the mosaic anatomy of the Lagar Velho child does indicate that, regardless
of what we see in the realm of lithics, admixture between the two groups
must have been significant, at least in such cul-de-sacs as the Iberian
Pensinsula. Conversely, the fact that the same genetically-inherited traits
borne by the Lagar Velho child are not found in the contemporaneous skeletal
material from such western and central European sites as Paviland or Dolní
Vestonice suggests that, in these regions, interbreeding may have been rare
or insignificant.
Fig.5: Map of Europe showing areas of the last
Neanderthal refugia ca. 30,000 BP
Alternatively, the absence of such traits may be related to the fact that
the central European material dates to 10,000 years after the time of contact,
as opposed to only 3,000 in the Portuguese case. Such an explanatory framework
would make it possible to accommodate the evidence for gene flow claimed
by different authors on the basis of the earlier (but fragmentary) modern
human skeletal material from Hahnöfersand or Mladec, as well as the
suggestion that a genetic input from moderns explains the gracile features
of the very late Neanderthals from Vindija’s level G1, which have now
been radiocarbon dated to ca. 29,000 BP. In at least some regions of central
Europe, therefore, it would be possible to model the replacement process
after the Iberian case, that is, as earlier instances of extensive biological
admixture in which the culture of moderns (or, at least, the archaeologically
visible aspects of culture) became the culture of the new admixed groups:
put another way, in which Neanderthals were essentially absorbed by the incoming
modern human populations. In this scenario, the anatomical traits inherited
from Neanderthals would vanish after a few thousand years, through the operation
of demographic or genetic processes that remain to be modelled.
The last Neanderthals: anatomically archaic, behaviorally modern.
What the above discussion makes clear is that, regardless of the differences
manifested in the archaeologically-documented features of their cultures,
the contact and interaction between Neanderthals and moderns as individuals
and groups was one of people versus people, not “people” (the moderns)
versus “animals” (the Neanderthals). The hypothesis that moderns
held some kind of biologically-based intellectual advantage that would have
led to a sweeping replacement of Neanderthals, the latter having become extinct
without descent, is clearly contradicted by the geographical features of
the process outlined above:
-the fact that Neanderthals survived in Iberian regions south of the Ebro
river until about 30 to 28,000 years ago, separated from the groups of
Aurignacian moderns established north of the Pyrenees since ca. 36,500 BP
by a stable frontier that lasted many millennia;
-the temporal and geographical variation from region to region that characterized
the interaction process in the different parts of Europe;
-the anatomical evidence for hybridization provided by the Lagar Velho child
and the clues from different central European fossils of the period between
34,000 and 28,000 BP that similar processes of admixture may have occurred
in those regions as well;
-the variability in lithic material culture that characterized the Neanderthal
world, both before and after Aurignacian moderns entered Europe, even when,
ca. 30-28,000 BP, Neanderthals seem to have become restricted to a few peripheral
regions where traditions are maintained and no sign of Aurignacian influence
is visible (fig. 4).
These facts show that Neanderthals were well-adapted, resilient and culturally
very capable people. Instances where mutual avoidance occurred and the
fragmentation of social territories and social networks eventually led to
the total disappearance of local Neanderthal groups are, of course, conceivable.
But the fact that there is no solid evidence for a long-term (i.e. over several
millennia) contemporaneity between both human types at a local/regional scale
(i.e., sharing the same territories and alternating in the use of the same
sites for extensive periods of time) strongly suggests that, once contact
was established, swift integration was the rule rather than the exception.
In fact, the examples that have been put forward to sustain such a long-term
contemporaneity in the same region do not survive close scrutiny with a
taphonomical perspective. For many years, for instance, it was argued that
the three instances of interstratification between Châtelperronian
and Aurignacian levels reported from France (Le Piage and Roc-de-Combe) and
Spain (El Pendo) represented genuine evidence of the alternate use of the
same site by different groups (Neanderthals and moderns) over many millennia.
Recent work, however, has shown that, in all these instances, post-depositional
disturbance, not human activity, was responsible for the stratigraphic pattern.
In every known stratigraphical sequence whose integrity is attested and contains
both Aurignacian and Châtelperronian levels, the former always overlie
the latter.
The reanalysis of these claims, coupled with the availability of new and
more reliable radiometric results, has also shown that those features of
the Châtelperronian which were attributed to acculturation (if not
simple imitation) from contact with their modern neighbors are in fact
independent cultural developments that arose among some central and western
European Neanderthal groups well before moderns started to penetrate the
continent. The production of the numerous fine bone and ivory tools and of
the abundant body ornaments recovered in the Châtelperronian levels
of the Grotte du Renne, in Burgundy, France (but also known at other French,
Austrian, German and Crimean sites), shows that the cultural behavior and
the intellectual capabilities of the anatomically archaic Neanderthals were
as “modern” as those of the anatomically modern “moderns”
(fig. 11). Moreover, they were being produced more than 38,000 years ago,
while no secure dating evidence exists for the Aurignacian (taken as a proxy
for modern humans) before ca. 36,500 years ago anywhere in Europe (fig. 12).
If the two groups had attained a similar level of cultural achievement, why
then did modern humans prevail? Why was it that the immigrants absorbed the
locals and not the other way around? Biogeographic and demographic explanations
may provide the answers. In the Pleistocene period, most humans lived in
Africa, and population densities in that continent must also have been higher
than in the periglacial fringe of the Old World that Neanderthals inhabited.
Once the success of their cultural adaptation led to the crossing of critical
thresholds of population density and, consequently, pushed
demographically-growing groups of African moderns to enter a process of expansion
into new territories, the fate of the much smaller and scattered populations
of Eurasia was sealed. This has nothing to do with anatomical features or
biologically-based anatomical capabilities, it’s a simple matter of
numbers. All the more so if these African groups also had a higher fertility,
as is commonly the case with warm climate populations of the same species
when compared with those from colder climates. Given enough time, even a
very small difference in fertility would put the much smaller and more scattered
populations of Neanderthals at a demographic disadvantage, especially if
interbreeding was common. Put another way, “moderns” prevailed
not because they were “modern” but because they were African, i.e.,
because of their geographical origin, not because of their anatomical
peculiarities.
Conclusion: Recent DNA research has shown that Neanderthals are
significantly different from recent humans. From this, it has been inferred
by many that they must also have been significantly different (for some,
even at the species level) from the contemporary early modern humans that
would have replaced them without admixture. This is an anti-evolutionist
view, since it assumes that nothing changed in the genetic make-up of
anatomically modern humans ever since they first arose from the original
mitochondrial Eve 150,000 years ago. Since it is quite clear that evolution
did not stop with the birth of Eve’s children, and since it has been
an established paleontological fact for about 100 years that the people who
currently live on planet Earth are not Neanderthals, these DNA results contribute
little to our understanding of what happened in that critical period between
50,000 and 25,000 years ago during which the Neanderthal phenotype disappeared.
More Neanderthal samples need to be analyzed, while reliable criteria to
ascertain whether the DNA of a Neanderthal that looks like a modern is
contaminated or genuine need to be established. Samples of the DNA of early
modern humans (so far none have been obtained) have to be used as the basis
for these comparisons.
Meanwhile, the archaeological and physical anthropological features of the
empirical record suggest that, in order to be productive, further work should
proceed on the basis of the recognition of the following realities:
1) That Neanderthals fared well and for many millennia in certain parts of
Eurasia before being replaced by modern groups, i.e, that, on a continental
scale, there was a long-term contemporaneity between the two;
2) That there is no evidence of a long-lived contemporaneity on a local/regional
scale between the two groups, implying
a) either rapid replacement with minimal cultural interaction and minimal
biological admixture, perhaps as a result of a behavior of mutual avoidance,
which is conceivable in the core continental areas of Eurasia;
b) or intensive interaction and extensive admixture, which must have been
the rule in the geographical culs-de-sac that were Neanderthals’ last
refugia once the stable frontiers that separated them from moderns eventually
collapsed;
3) That anatomical traits are a much better indicator of potential admixture
than stone tool technology.
References:
D'Errico, F., J. Zilhão, D. Baffier, M. Julien, and J. Pelegrin.
1998. “Neanderthal Acculturation in Western Europe? A Critical Review
of the Evidence and Its Interpretation.” Current
Anthropology, 39, Supplement: S1-S44.
Duarte, C., J. Mauricio, P..B. Pettit, P. Souto, E. Trinkaus, H. Van
der Plict, and J. Zilhão. 1999. “The Early Upper Paleolithic
Human Skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and Modern Human
Emergence in Iberia.” Washington, D.C. Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, 96: 76047609.
Trinkaus, E., J. Zilhão, and C. Duarte. 1999. “The Lapedo
Child: Lagar Velho 1 and our Perceptions of the Neandertals.”
Mediterranean Prehistory Online. Uploaded November 17, 1999.
http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/issue001/ articles/doc/013.htm
Zilhão, J. 1998. “The extinction of Iberian Neandertals
and its implications for the origins of modern humans in Europe,” in
Facchini, F.; A. Palma di Cesnola, M. Piperno, and C, Peretto (eds). Forlì,
Abaco. XIII International Congress of Prehistoric and Protohistoric
Sciences. Proceedings, 2: 299-312.
Zilhão, J. 1998. “The extinction of Iberian Neandertals
and its implications for the origins of modern humans in Europe.”
Mediterranean Prehistory Online. Uploaded December 22, 1998.
http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/issue001/ articles/doc/006.htm
Zilhão, J. 2000 “Fate of the Neandertals.” New York.
Archaeology 53 (4): 24-31.
Zilhão, J. 2000. “The Ebro frontier: a model for the late
extinction of Iberian Neanderthals.” in Stringer, C.; R.N.E. Barton,
and C. Finlayson (eds). Neanderthals on the edge: 150th anniversary
conference of the Forbes’ Quarry discovery, Gibraltar. Oxford,Oxbow
Books: 111-121.
Zilhão, J. and F. D’Errico. 1999. “Reply,” in
“The Neanderthal Problem Continued.” Current
Anthropology, 40 (3): 355-364.
Zilhão, J. and F. D’Errico. 1999. “The chronology
and taphonomy of the earliest Aurignacian and its implications for the
understanding of Neanderthal extinction.” New York. Journal of
World Prehistory, 13 (1): 1-68.
Zilhão, J. and F. D’Errico. 2000. “A Case for Neandertal
Culture.” New York. Scientific American 282:
104-105..
.
This article is an abridged version of that appearing in Vol.2, No.4 of Athena
Review.
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The Lagar
Velho site: Lagar Velho is a rock-shelter in the Lapedo valley, a limestone
canyon ca.140 km north of Lisbon in central Portugal where salvage operations
in December-January 1998-1999 were followed by two summer field seasons,
in July 1999, and in June-October 2000. As a result, it has been possible
to establish that the site contains three major archaeological components:
the remnant of a dense settlement layer from Solutrean times exposed by recent
farming; a living floor from the preceding Gravettian era; and the remains
of a four year old child in one side of the Gravettian occupational levels,
the first Paleolithic burial ever found in the Iberian Peninsula.
m
of archaeologically empty space. The particular location selected took
advantage of a small recess in the back wall of the shelter that, at the
time of burial, created a protective overhang almost at ground level, forming
a kind of natural niche ready-made to receive the body of the child that
archaeologists eventually catalogued as fossil LV1. However, similar niches
exist in the back wall of the shelter in the area where the living floors
are located. It must be concluded, therefore, that there was an unequivocal
intention to bury the child away from the areas that people used for the
day-to-day living activities carried out in the framework of the site’s
use as a residential or as a logistical place.
Artifacts and
animal bones were found in close association with the skeleton. A Littorina
obtusata shell pendant (fig.3) was recovered in the child’s neck. Four
pierced red deer canines were found in the above-mentioned cluster of displaced,
small, red-stained fragments of the child’s skull. The association of
these deer canines with the cranial vault, as in contemporaneous burials
from Italy and Moravia, suggests that they must have been part of a headdress.
Other features
of the child’s anatomy, however, suggest clear Neanderthal affinities.
Of paramount importance in this regard are the relatively short lower limb
segments, reflected in the proportions of its tibial length to femoral length.
This ecogeographical proportion, indicating a hyperarctic pattern among the
Neanderthals and a tropical one for the European early modern humans (as
well as the Levantine early modern human Qafzeh-Skhul sample), completely
separates the Neanderthals from these early modern human groups. The Neanderthals
have proportionately shorter tibiae relative to their femora. These proportions
appear early in development, are well documented for Neanderthal children,
and remain stable for a number of millennia in Late Pleistocene and Holocene
human populations.
For the moment,
therefore, we can only work with inferences from the biological facts. And
the mosaic anatomy of the Lagar Velho child does indicate that, regardless
of what we see in the realm of lithics, admixture between the two groups
must have been significant, at least in such cul-de-sacs as the Iberian
Pensinsula. Conversely, the fact that the same genetically-inherited traits
borne by the Lagar Velho child are not found in the contemporaneous skeletal
material from such western and central European sites as Paviland or Dolní
Vestonice suggests that, in these regions, interbreeding may have been rare
or insignificant.