Naulette, is a large cave located in

Wallonia Wallonia ( ; ; or ), officially the Walloon Region ( ; ), is one of the three communities, regions and language areas of Belgium, regions of Belgium—along with Flemish Region, Flanders and Brussels. Covering the southern portion of the c ...

on the left bank of the

Lesse The Lesse is a river in the Ardennes, in the Walloon region of Belgium. It is a right tributary to the river Meuse. The source of the Lesse is near Libramont-Chevigny, in the Belgian province of Luxembourg. The Lesse flows roughly in north-weste ...

, a tributary of the

Meuse The Meuse or Maas is a major European river, rising in France and flowing through Belgium and the Netherlands before draining into the North Sea from the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta. It has a total length of . History From 1301, the upper ...

in the hills above

Dinant Dinant () is a City status in Belgium, city and Municipalities in Belgium, municipality of Wallonia located in the Namur Province, province of Namur, Belgium. On the shores of river Meuse, in the Ardennes, it lies south-east of Brussels, south ...

Belgium Belgium, officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. Situated in a coastal lowland region known as the Low Countries, it is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeas ...

. In 1866 Belgian

paleontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

Édouard Dupont discovered a fragmented

edentulous Toothlessness or edentulism is the condition of having no teeth. In organisms that naturally have teeth, it is the result of tooth loss. Organisms that never possessed teeth can also be described as edentulous. Examples are the members of the fo ...

human

mandible In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla). The jawbone i ...

and an incomplete

ulna The ulna or ulnar bone (: ulnae or ulnas) is a long bone in the forearm stretching from the elbow to the wrist. It is on the same side of the forearm as the little finger, running parallel to the Radius (bone), radius, the forearm's other long ...

at Naulette, that are now housed in the Brussels Natural History Museum . Contrary to earlier human fossil discoveries, such as the

Neanderthal 1 Feldhofer 1 or Neanderthal 1 is the scientific name of the 40,000-year-old Type (biology), type specimen fossil of the species Neanderthal, ''Homo neanderthalensis''. The fossil was discovered in August 1856 in the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte cave ...

remains in Germany, which could not be traced back to its contextual origin the Naulette fossil's antiquity was quickly confirmed as it was recorded in a precise

stratigraphic Stratigraphy is a branch of geology concerned with the study of rock layers (strata) and layering (stratification). It is primarily used in the study of sedimentary and layered volcanic rocks. Stratigraphy has three related subfields: lithost ...

context and could be compared and associated with remains of large, extinct prehistoric mammals,

mammoth A mammoth is any species of the extinct elephantid genus ''Mammuthus.'' They lived from the late Miocene epoch (from around 6.2 million years ago) into the Holocene until about 4,000 years ago, with mammoth species at various times inhabi ...

rhinoceros A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...

and

reindeer The reindeer or caribou (''Rangifer tarandus'') is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, taiga, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only re ...

unearthed from the same sediment layer. French

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

Paul Broca Pierre Paul Broca (, also , , ; 28 June 1824 – 9 July 1880) was a French physician, anatomist and anthropologist. He is best known for his research on Broca's area, a region of the frontal lobe that is named after him. Broca's area is involve ...

wrote that the discovery constitutes "the first event providing Darwinists with

anatomical Anatomy () is the branch of morphology concerned with the study of the internal structure of organisms and their parts. Anatomy is a branch of natural science that deals with the structural organization of living things. It is an old scien ...

evidence. It is the first link in the chain which, according to them, extends from man to the

apes Apes (collectively Hominoidea ) are a superfamily of Old World simians native to sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia (though they were more widespread in Africa, most of Asia, and Europe in prehistory, and counting humans are found glo ...

". The mandible exhibits certain peculiarities, is of a very ape-like type in its extreme projection and that of the teeth sockets (the teeth themselves are lost), suggesting very strong canines and large

molars The molars or molar teeth are large, flat tooth, teeth at the back of the mouth. They are more developed in mammal, mammals. They are used primarily to comminution, grind food during mastication, chewing. The name ''molar'' derives from Latin, '' ...

that increase in size backward. The ''Naulette Man'' is now considered to be a

Neanderthal Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...

assigned to the Mousterian culture.

References

See

Gabriel de Mortillet Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet (29 August 1821 – 25 September 1898), French archaeologist and anthropologist, was born at Meylan, Isère. Biography Mortillet was educated at the Jesuit college of Chambéry and at the Paris Conservatoi ...

, ''Le Préhistorique'' (1900); E Dupont, ''Étude sur les fouilles scientifiques exécutées pendant l'hiver'' (1865–1866), p. 21. ---- {{Authority control 1866 archaeological discoveries Caves of Wallonia Landforms of Namur (province) Neanderthal sites Archaeological sites in Belgium Limestone caves Mousterian Dinant

See also

References