Today is a fact recognized by the scientific community, which sapiens(Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (H. Neanderthalensis) They lived in some contexts. Fruit of that coexistence, the procreation between both human species and, the result of that procreation, a Neandertal genetic legacy that still lasts, to a greater or less measure, in our genes. Fruit also of that hybridization were the remains of the one we know today as the Lapedo child.
New dating. Now, a new study He has managed to stop These bone remains found almost 30 years ago in the Lapedo Valley, in the center-west of Portugal. According to this new dating, the child to whom these bones belonged would have lived about 28,000 years ago, millennia after the extinction of their Neanderthal ancestors.
A key finding. The remains of the Lapedo child was found by chance in 1998 in the homonymous valley, near the Portuguese city of Leiria. At the time, the infant bone remains assumed an important test in favor of the hybridization hypothesis between Neanderthals and Sapiens.
The bones showed their own features. Of the Neanderthals would have inherited attributes such as complexion.
At the time when some experts DNA began to study Of the bone remains left behind by the Neanderthals, these remains showed us otherwise the results of the hybridization between our species and its evolutionary “cousins”. Studies that would also help confirm this hybridization.
New information 27 years later. The new study estimates that the Lapedo child would have lived between 27,780 and 28,550 years ago. The dating had been elusive so far since the remains were surrounded by organic matter belonging to different periods.
The team managed to save this obstacle focusing on an amino acid present in the collagen of human bones. “Being able to successfully date the child, we feel like a small piece of their history, which is a great privilege,” explained to Phys.org Bethan Linscott, co -author of the study. The details of the study have been published In an article In the magazine Science Advances.
Rites … The child’s bones are only part of the history of the society in which he was born. And, as Linscott explains, these remains were found in a grave, they had not been left behind but had received some kind of funeral rite.
The bone remains were found along with animal bones. Next to the child were discovered remains belonging to a deer, and about the child, remains belonging to a rabbit. A piece of coal that seemed to be part of a funeral rite was also discovered.
The study of the different elements showed a somewhat different story. While rabbit’s remains were contemporary of the infant’s remains, both the deer bones and the piece of bastard would be prior to the era in which this lived.
… and superstitions? Another important detail that reveals the Lopedo site is that this was abandoned for at least two millennia after the burial of the young man. This allows us to speculate with the reason for this migration and about its possible connection with the tomb found in this environment.
Image | Jakub Hałun
