Tautavel Man
| Tautavel Man | |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Primates |
| Family: | Hominidae |
| Genus: | Homo |
| Species: | †H. erectus |
| Subspecies: | †H. e. tautavelensis |
| Trinomial name | |
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Homo erectus tautavelensis de Lumley and de Lumley 1971 |
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| Site of discovery in Tautavel, France | |
Tautavel Man (Homo erectus tautavelensis), is a proposed subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus, the 450,000-year-old fossil remains of whom were discovered in the Arago Cave in Tautavel, France. Excavations began in 1964, with the first notable discovery occurring in 1969.
The first person to find objects at the location did so during 1828. These were animal bones considered antediluvian by Marcel de Serres, a professional geologist at the University of Montpellier. The Proto-Mousterian Industry tools found by Jean Abélanet during 1963, initiated the beginning of the Lumley led excavations of 1964.
The skeletal remains of two individual hominids have been found in the cave: a female older than 40 (Arago II, July 1969), and a male aged no more than 20 (Arago XXI, July 1971, and Arago XLVII, July 1979). Recovered stone tools originate from within a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) radius of the cave, while animal bones suggest the inhabitants could travel up to 33 kilometres (21 mi) for food.
All fossils recovered from Arago were found by Henry and Marie-Antoinette de Lumley and are now located at the Institute for Human Palaeontology in Paris. Arago II is a nearly complete mandible with six teeth from a 40–55 years old female. Arago XXI is a deformed cranial fragment featuring the most complete pre-Neanderthal face accompanied by a frontal and a sphenoid bone. Arago XLVII is a right parietal bone, the sutures of which fits perfectly with Arago XXI. The two latter have an estimated developmental age of twenty, while an uranium series dating produced a fossil age of c.400,000 years (this is near the maximum limit for this method and the fossil may be older.)
The male skull has a flat and receding forehead with well-developed supraorbital ridges ("eyebrows") and a large face with rectangular eye sockets. The cranial cavity had a volume of 1,150 cubic centimetres (70 cu in). The rest of the skeleton has been reconstructed from 75 fossil remains and casts from fossils found at other sites; an interpretation suggesting in a sturdier skeleton than that of modern humans and a height of 1.65 metres (5 ft 5 in).
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