HAS LA FERRASSIE KEPT A RECORD OF HER FIRST TENANTS?
On that day there was a core issue which could only be addressed with the push of
a spade, with no guarantee of success. After a morning spent digging the anxiousness
turned into bliss.
Yes! There remain archaeological levels, undisturbed during the Peyrony excavations a hundred
years ago, and they are indeed the place where the first two skeletons were found:
La Ferrassie 1 and La Ferrassie 2, supposedly
a man and a woman, although that remains to be proved.
Yes! Samples can be taken and these deposits
can be dated, giving us at last a pretty good idea of when they were
buried.
It is plain that, thanks to the resumption of excavation work on 21 June 2010, La
Ferrassie will be unable to lie much longer about her age and this is likely to
cast doubt on quite a number of theories concerning the history of mankind.
DATES CAN CHANGE EVERYTHING
Dates are all-important. Just imagine, if Jesus had been born not 2,010 years ago
but 50,000 years ago, what would be left of Lourdes, the pope and the Immaculate
Conception? Yes, dates are of the utmost importance and can revolutionize the whole
scenario of our origins.
The excavations conducted
by Denis Peyrony at the start of the twentieth century had indeed revealed
a plethora of truly exceptional Neanderthal skeletons, six in all, with a seventh
to be discovered in the 70s by Henri Delporte. The site was ranked second in the
world behind Shanidar Cave in Kurdistan. But, with insufficient information for
identifying the archaeological levels where these people lay and the limitations
of radiocarbon dating, the closest they could get to an estimate was 35,000 years.
This new data is likely to send a shock wave through our perception of the history
of mankind. If, in the Périgord, they had in fact begun burying their dead at an
earlier date or at the same time as the people in the Near East, where they hold
the record for ancientness, then we would have to reconsider some of our ideas about
the evolution of cultures and the shifting of ancient human populations. For our
theories on this subject are still by no means supported by scientific evidence.
It must be remembered that, as yet, only 40 Neanderthal graves have been discovered
in the world; seven of them are at La Ferrassie and we still don’t know how old
they are. We have so much to learn and the
history of our origins has only been openly queried over the last 200 years,
without fear of excommunication or being burnt at the stake.
NEW DATING METHODOLOGIES BASED ON RADIOACTIVITY
Dating methodologies have advanced over the last 100 years. Now we can go back much
further than 35,000 years, in particular thanks to means of measuring radioactivity
accumulated underground by certain elements. Quartz is a good indicator. Here’s
how it’s done: using a dosimeter they measure the ambient radioactivity in a given
place. Samples of quartz fragments are taken from the various stratigraphic levels
so as to measure their radioactivity. This tells us how long they have been exposed
to this radioactivity. A clean start can be made by swiftly exposing this quartz
to heat (300°) or to light (laser beam). The differential between the zero obtained
during this process and the preceding measurement determines how long the fragment
has been under the ground.
MEN, TOOLS AND CAVES
The measuring methods and the samples taken will enable the scientists to carry
out dating. But that isn’t all. A new series of excavations is being planned to
search for ancient flint tools that they have identified in the vicinity, namely
a number of surprisingly ancient Mousterian bifaces that belong to a culture in
the Périgord that we know very little about. And, of course, you never know - in
this famous Neanderthal necropolis they might just happen upon still more graves,
even if that isn’t their primary motivation.
Finally, Alain Turq would like to start geological studies of the valley, to see
how the cavities and shelters man lived in were formed. This time the technique
adopted will be ground-penetrating radar, a sort of substratum sonogram that will
be used to visualize the invisible without the need to dig. For there’s no denying
that the genesis of the karst subterranean, gruyere-cheese maze in the Périgord
stll holds many marvellous mysteries.
Sophie Cattoire
Translation into English by Valérie Saraben
We would like to thank all the scientists and scholars who made us so welcome on
this archaeological dig near the prehistoric site at La Ferrassie between 21 and
26 June 2010.
Our special thanks to Magen O’Farrell, archaeologist, Bastien Chadelle, geology
student, Véra Aldeias, micromorphology student, Stéphanie Douieb, guide at the Musée
National de Préhistoire, who took part in the removal and sieving of the spoil and
who ensured the safety and the protection of the site throughout the operation.
This initial dig and the excavation site which will be scheduled for the next few
years are in the hands of an international collective of scientists including Alain
Turq, prehistorian, curator of the Musée National de Préhistoire, Bruno Maureille,
anthropologist, head of the Laboratoire des Populations du Passé at Bordeaux 1 University
and their eminent American colleagues: the prehistorians – Harold Dibble, professor
at Pennsylvania University, Shannon Mac Pherron, professor at the Max Planck Institute
in Leipzig, Dennis Sandgathe, professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver
– and the geologist, Paul Goldberg, professor at Boston University.
Other disciplines will be solicited to complete the whole process which will cover
contemporary lythic analysis of the most ancient stratigraphic levels, anthropological
fieldwork on human remains already exhumed or about to be exhumed and a thorough
geological study of La Ferrassie Valley.
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