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Prehistoric human tooth found in France
A teenage archaeologist has uncovered a human tooth that is more than 500,000 years old. The tooth was unearthed in the southwestern part of France and experts say the discovery is extremely important.
Amelie Viallet, a French paleoanthropologist, explained the 500,000-year-old human tooth was discovered while the archaeologists were excavating the soil of a very famous digging site. Viallet said it’s too early to know whether the prehistoric tooth belonged to a man or a female, but after further analysis they will be able to find more details about it.
The ancient human tooth was unearthed by a team of volunteers who were working in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, in the Pyrénées-Orientales Department located in the south of France. The site is very famous among archaeologists mostly because this is the place where the remains of the Tautavel Man were found. The Tautavel Man is a Homo Erectus that lived more than 450,000 years ago.
Christian Perrenoud, one of the archaeologists who is very familiar with the site, said that the prehistoric human tooth is a very important discovery, but there are more to find. He told the local newspaper he believes the site is full of valuable archaeological artifacts and it’s just a matter of time until they unearth them all. Perrenoud said he doesn’t believe they will be able to find the whole skeletal remains of the prehistoric owner of the tooth because back then our ancestors didn’t bury their dead. However, the archaeologists hope to find more bones that belong to the same individual.
Perrenoud told the newspaper that human remains that date back 500,000 to 800,000 years ago are very hard to find in Europe, that’s why the recently discovered human tooth is very valuable because it fills in some gaps in the evolution of humans. The archaeologists said they managed to unearth thousands of artifacts since they began to excavate the site in May.
The researchers found a lot of information about the human ancestors that lived in caves during those times, including information about the vegetation of the area, and how much they traveled to get their food.
The human tooth was discovered by a volunteer archaeologist named Camille who was working with a friend when she made the discovery last week.
The tooth was named Arago1 9 and experts believe it to be an adult incisor. However they are not certain yet whether the tooth belonged to a male or female human ancestor.
Image Source: dailymail
