Scladina
Grotte de Scladina | |
Palaeolithic | |
Associated with | Neanderthals |
---|---|
Site notes | |
Excavation dates | since 1971 |
Archaeologists | of ASBL Archéologie Andennaise |
Scladina, or Sclayn Cave, is an archaeological site located in Wallonia in the town of Sclayn, in the Andenne hills in Belgium, where excavations since 1978 have provided the material for an exhaustive collection of over thirteen thousand Mousterian stone artifacts[1] and the fossilized remains of an especially ancient Neanderthal, called the Scladina child were discovered in 1993.[2]
Scladina cave site
The Scladina cave is located on a hill to the right of the Meuse river bank, south-west of Sclayn village, being one of a number of caves in the middle Meuse river region, where significant paleontological discoveries were made as in the Spy Cave and the Lyell Cave. The caves in the area have undergone systematic exploration since 1949.[2]
Scladina Cave was discovered in 1971 by
The remarkably good state of preservation of the fossils,
Scladina Neanderthal child
Dated to be around 127,000 years old,[2] the first fragment of the now nearly complete mandible, was found on 16 July 1993. A maxillary fragment and several teeth of the child were excavated in subsequent campaigns. A genetic sample was successfully extracted from one of the molars at a specific laboratory for ancient DNA and analyzed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig.[7][8][2]
Physiology and development
The child's DNA is one of the oldest to have been extracted from a Homo neanderthalensis fossil and has significantly contributed to the genetic mapping of the Neanderthal genome and the comparison with Homo sapiens.[7] Initially it was suggested that the Scladina child was 2 to 4 years older than current estimates, based upon traditional assessments of the progressive dental development. Results of an international research collaboration allow the proposal that Homo neanderthalensis children had a faster rate of dental development than modern human children as well as other aspects of physical development were likely to be more rapid in juvenile Neanderthals, such as a quicker onset of sexual maturity and different and faster patterns of early cognitive development.[7]
The study further elaborates, that
A single tooth of another Neanderthal infant, also found at the site, was analysed by Christine Austin and Tanya Smith, whose analysis suggests that this particular child has received 7 months of breastfeeding and supplementation for additional 7 months, which adds up to roughly 14 months of breastfeeding.[2] This cycle is indeed longer than that of some contemporary human cultures, which implies that Neanderthal children might have grown up faster, a process that began only after the stages of early infancy.[citation needed]
Behavior and tool use
Neanderthal diet consisted to over 70% of meat, unlike that of contemporary
Public education
The ASBL Archéologie Andennaise has established an educational mission in consequence of the prolonged, intense and insightful study of the site and the enormous implications of the acquired information and data. The idea is to correctly inform about prehistory, deemed to be still perceived as nebulous and mythical by the general public. The site and its documentation center are open to the public all year round. Private groups, school classes are permanently granted access to the cave, the laboratory, the museum gallery with multimedia program rooms, accompanied by the researchers and scientists themselves.[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b Di Modica, Kévin; Bonjean, Dominique (September 2006). "The exploitation of quartzite in Layer 5 (Mousterian) of Scladina cave (Wallonia, Belgium): flexibility and dynamics of concepts of debitage in the Middle Palaeolithic". XV World Congress of the International Union for Prehistoric and Protohistoric Sciences. BAR International Series. Vol. 1998. Archaeopress. pp. 33–41.
- ^ S2CID 588358.
- "100,000 Year-old DNA Sequence Allows New Look At Neandertal's Genetic Diversity". ScienceDaily (Press release). 7 June 2006.
- ^ a b "WALLONIE.MUSEUM - Scladina Cave and Archaeological Centre". Portail.wallonie.museum. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
- .
- .
- ^ "UNCOVERING THE SECRETS OF SCLADINA CAVE" (PDF). ah.viu.ca. Retrieved 23 January 2017.
- ^ PMID 18077342.
- Andrea Thompson (4 December 2007). "Neanderthals Grew Up Faster than Humans". Live Science.
- ISBN 9780805088915. Retrieved 1 June 2014.
- ^ "Neanderthal bearing teeth". Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Press release). 4 December 2007.
- PMID 23698370.
- PMID 21719068.
External links
- Scladina Cave Archaeological Center (in French)
- The Scladina cave Archéologie Andennaise
- Charters, Daniel; Brown, Richard P.; Abrams, Grégory; Bonjean, Dominique; De Groote, Isabelle; Meloro, Carlo (February 2022). "Morphological evolution of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) mandibular molars: coordinated size and shape changes through the Scladina Cave chronostratigraphy". Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. 587: 110787. S2CID 245058872.