Posted on 10/19/2013 6:33:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
A record of Neanderthal archaeology, thought to be long lost, has been re-discovered by NERC-funded scientists working in the Channel island of Jersey... a key archaeological site has preserved geological deposits which were thought to have been lost through excavation 100 years ago.
The discovery was made when the team undertook fieldwork to stabilise and investigate a portion of the La Cotte de St Brelade cave, on Jersey's south eastern coastline.
A large portion of the site contains sediments dating to the last Ice Age, preserving 250,000 years of climate change and archaeological evidence.
The site, which has produced more Neanderthal stone tools than the rest of the British Isles put together, contains the only known late Neanderthal remains from North West Europe. These offer archaeologists one of the most important records of Neanderthal behaviour available...
The team dated sediments at the site using a technique called Optically Stimulated Luminesce, which measures the last time sand grains were exposed to sunlight. This was carried out at the Luminescence Dating Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art at Oxford University.
The results showed that part of the sequence of sediments dates between 100,000 and 47,000 years old, indicating that Neanderthal teeth which were discovered at the site in 1910 were younger than previously thought, and probably belonged to one of the last Neanderthals to live in the region...
The findings bring the large collections of stone tools, animal bone and the Neanderthal remains from the area under renewed study.
(Excerpt) Read more at nerc.ac.uk ...
http://gardenhistorygirl.blogspot.com/2012/01/cabbage-that-is-king-brassica-oleracae.html
See above link for a fascinating bit of garden/legal/business history!
Home of the last Neanderthals? About 20 years ago I had a family of them living next door. Seriously, you find a site and determine this was the last of them? Archeologists can find a pinkie bone and weave a complete story of the individual’s life.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave
The axe is from Senonais in the Yonne region of France.
Cool beans! ;)
Awesome! Did you find it? Buy it?
Thanks for the interesting link.
It’s the most recent spot where morphologically defined Neandertals lived; that may or may not be superseded by later finds. That’s a consequence of the scientific method.
That figures. Neanderthals came from Jersey!!! :)
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