The Loschbour man (also Loschbur man) is a specimen of ''

Homo sapiens Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...

'' from the European Mesolithic discovered in 1935 in

Mullerthal Little Switzerland (, , ) is a nickname for a region in the east of Luxembourg, bestowed upon the region on account of its reputed geographical Little Switzerland (landscape), similarities to Switzerland. It is roughly contiguous with the Cantons ...

, in the commune of

Waldbillig Waldbillig ( or locally ) is a commune and small town in the canton of Echternach, Luxembourg. , the town of Waldbillig, which lies in the centre of the commune, has a population of 599. Populated places The commune consists of the following ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg, officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, is a landlocked country in Western Europe. It is bordered by Belgium to the west and north, Germany to the east, and France on the south. Its capital and most populous city, Luxembour ...

History

The remains of the Loschbour man, nearly complete, were discovered on 7 October 1935 under a

rock shelter A rock shelter (also rockhouse, crepuscular cave, bluff shelter, or abri) is a shallow cave-like opening at the base of a bluff or cliff. In contrast to solutional caves (karst), which are often many miles long or wide, rock shelters are alm ...

on the banks of the Black Ernz river. It was found by amateur archaeologist and school teacher Nicolas Thill. It is now at the

National Museum of Natural History The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...

Luxembourg City Luxembourg (; ; ), also known as Luxembourg City ( or ; ; or ), is the capital city of Luxembourg and the Communes of Luxembourg, country's most populous commune. Standing at the confluence of the Alzette and Pétrusse rivers in southern Luxe ...

Life

Loschbour man was a

hunter-gatherer A hunter-gatherer or forager is a human living in a community, or according to an ancestrally derived Lifestyle, lifestyle, in which most or all food is obtained by foraging, that is, by gathering food from local naturally occurring sources, esp ...

, and the

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Historically, flint was widely used to make stone tools and start ...

tools used for stalking and killing prey (wild boar and deer) were found by his body. He was found to have been one of the late Western Hunter-Gatherers, soon to be supplanted by more numerous groups of

Early European Farmers Early European Farmers (EEF) were a group of the Anatolian Neolithic Farmers (ANF) who brought agriculture to Europe and Northwest Africa. The Anatolian Neolithic Farmers were an ancestral component, first identified in farmers from Anatolia (als ...

from Anatolia and Southwestern Europe. According to DNA tests reported in 2014, the Loschbour man was male, and described as having an "intermediate" to light skin tone (90%), brown or black hair (98%), and likely blue eyes (56%). In contrast to 90% of modern Europeans, he was lactose-intolerant. When he died, he was between 34 and 47 years old, c. tall, and weighed between . The cremated remains of another person, likely an adult woman, were found nearby, in a pit which was first excavated in the 1930s and later rediscovered. The bones of the feet were absent, and remains from the thorax underrepresented, and the remaining bones had scrapemarks, evidencing a de-fleshing treatment likely before cremation, including removal of the mandible and scraping of the skull.

Dating and genetics

Loschbour man lived more than 8,000 years ago, making the skeleton the oldest human remains found in Luxembourg. He was found to have carried the

Y-DNA haplogroup In human genetics, a human Y-chromosome DNA haplogroup is a haplogroup defined by specific mutations in the non- recombining portions of DNA on the male-specific Y chromosome (Y-DNA). Individuals within a haplogroup share similar numbers of sh ...

I2a-M423*. DNA testing on two molars indicated the population to which the Loschbour man belonged ( Western Hunter-Gatherers), "contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to near-Easterners".

Media, science

The results of the 2014 DNA testing allowed the Luxembourg Centre National de Recherche Archéologique and the Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art to make a 3-D reconstruction of the man. ''L'homme de Loschbour'' is a 2012 animated movie, seven minutes long, by Nic Herber. "Redonner vie à l’Homme de Loschbour" was a one-day conference at the

, which presented an overview of the results of recent investigations.

References

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External links