THE HUMAN REMAINS OF THE SITE OF PAYRE (S-E FRANCE, MIS 7–5). REMARKS ON STRATIGRAPHIC POSITION AND INTEREST

Most of Neanderthal sites in Europe yielded only very small quantities of human remains. These often consist of resistant material, i.e. teeth and highly fragmented parts of the cranium and post-cranial skeleton. In southeastern France, the site of Payre, dated from MIS 7 and 5, illustrates this sca...

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Published inAnthropologie (Brno) Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 19 - 30
Main Authors MONCEL, MARIE-HÉLÈNE, CONDEMI, SILVANA
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Brno Moravian Museum 01.01.2007
Moravské muzeum
Moravian Museum, Anthropos Institute
Subjects
Bones
Carnivores
Caves
Europe
France
Human remains
Humans
Hyenas
Lower and middle palaeolithic
Marine isotope stages
Neanderthals
ORIGINAL PAPERS • TRAVAUX ORIGINAUX • ORIGINALARBEITEN
Palaeolithic and mesolithic
Prehistory and protohistory
Sediments
Teeth
Neanderthal
Middle Palaeolithic
Ardeche
France
Europe
Cave deposits
Ardèche
Human body
Post-mortem processes
Bone dispersion
Neanderthal remains
Payre
Middle Paleolithic
Skeleton
Bone
France
Absence of grave
Human remain
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Summary:Most of Neanderthal sites in Europe yielded only very small quantities of human remains. These often consist of resistant material, i.e. teeth and highly fragmented parts of the cranium and post-cranial skeleton. In southeastern France, the site of Payre, dated from MIS 7 and 5, illustrates this scarcity well. It has yielded 13 teeth and a fragment of parietal, spread all along the sequence. This paper is an attempt to characterize and discuss the stratigraphic context in which these human remains were found. In Payre, most remains were discovered close to each other in the level G, at the base of the sequence. The fact that such small and few remains were preserved inside karstic deposits is discussed in comparison with other sites in Europe: human deposition of bodies or carnivore actions. The situation at Payre is common during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene where no burials were attested.
ISSN:0323-1119
2570-9127