Paleoanthropologists have reconstructed the face of a Neanderthal man whose 56,000-year-old remains were found at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in south-central France.
The facial reconstruction of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal. Image credit: Moraes et al.
On August 3, 1908, a nearly complete skeleton of Neanderthal was discovered by three Catholic priests (two real brothers, Amédée and Louis Bouyssonie, and their lay brother) in a cave near the village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France.
The cave is not too far from Lascaux cave, where the famous cave paintings would be found in 1940.
The skeleton included the skull, jaw, most of the vertebrae, several ribs, most of the long bones of his arms and legs, and some of the smaller bones of his hands and feet.
Bouyssonie brothers were friends with the French paleontologist, geologist, and anthropologist Marcellin Boule, and they turned the skeleton over to him.
Boule determined that the ancient individual was a Neanderthal, who had lived to be about 60, had lost most of his teeth, and died from a blow to the head.
The fossil is often referred to as an ‘Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints’ because he was suffering from severe periodontal disease and joint degeneration.
The ability of this individual to survive such severe ailments indicates that he probably had help from others.
The original skeleton is estimated to be 56,000-47,000 years old and is on display at the Musée de l’Homme, Paris.
“Among the main pathologies found in this ancient individual, there is brucellosis, whose presence has allowed us to hypothesize that it could be one of the first documented cases of this zoonotic disease,” lead author Cícero Moraes from the Ortogonline Treinamento em Desenvolvimento Profissional e Consultoria LTDA and colleagues said in their presentation.
The facial reconstruction of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal in sepia tone. Image credit: Moraes et al.
For the facial approximation of the La Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal, the researchers used computed tomography scans of his skull.
They generated two images: one in sepia tone without hair and the other in color, with hair, beard and hair.
“The proposed reconstruction represents the latest of along series which has seen the gradual evolution from one very primitive and ‘animalistic’ conception of the Neanderthal to one that is very close to the anatomically modern Homo sapiens,” the authors concluded.
They presented their results in October 2023 at the ‘Abissi del Tempo’ Conference in Bari, Italy.
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Cicero Moraes et al. Una Nuova Approssimazione Facciale Per L’uomo De La Chapelle-aux-Saints 1. Abissi del Tempo 2023
