in search of our origins

France 5 – THURSDAY NOVEMBER 28 AT 9:05 P.M. – DOCUMENTARY

Who were the first inhabitants of Europe, long before theA wise man (since 55,000 years on the continent), and even before Neanderthal (around 300,000 years)? How did they survive in the hostile and icy environment that reigned then? What links did the different human groups form with each other? To sketch out answers to these dizzying questions, documentary filmmaker Emma Baus takes us to the foot of the Pyrenees, to the site of Tautavel (Pyrénées-Orientales). It is near this small village that the oldest human remains found to date on French territory were discovered, in the caune – or cave – of Arago.

An archaeological site excavated since 1964 – first by a team led by the couple Henry and Marie-Antoinette de Lumley – the Tautavel cave has seen hundreds of human groups succeed one another for more than 500,000 years. It was in 1971 that the remains of a human skull named “Arago 21” were unearthed, dating back 450,000 years. The director met the dozens of scientists – paleoanthropologists, geologists, dentists, primatologists, palynologists, etc. – who have since stood at her bedside to try to sketch the composite portrait and mode of existence.

Over the course of these fascinating interviews, the life of this “man from Tautavel” (although his gender is uncertain) – aged around 25 years old at the time of his death and measuring less than 1.70 meters and weighing 80 kilos – emerges. and that of its congeners. With a morphology close to Neanderthal, with a roll above the eyes and a recessed chin, it belongs to a species still poorly known, that of theA man from Heidelbergwhose evolution is located halfway betweenThe man stood up and the'Homo neanderthalensis. Other individuals of this species have been discovered elsewhere in Europe, in particular near Heidelberg (Germany) – hence its name -, as well as in Spain, at Atapuerca, not far from Tautavel.

Cannibalism

These Lower Paleolithic men lived in nomadic groups who moved with the seasons to hunt and gather. At Tautavel, countless animal fossils (bison, mouflons, horses, bears, wolves, etc.) littered the ground from the level dated 560,000 years ago, accompanied by rudimentary tools. These hunting spoils were used to the core, and their fur used as clothing to protect themselves from the polar cold.

But Tautavel man was also cannibalistic, as shown by the visibly consumed human remains found alongside animal fossils. According to researchers, it is likely that children and adolescents bore the brunt of turf wars between clans.

If the thinking of these pre-Neanderthals remains almost completely unfathomable, the A man from Heidelberg had an advanced communication system, that the program Origins of Speech strives to reconstruct, explains paleoanthropologist Amélie Vialet – also co-author, with Emma Baus, of the beautiful book Origins: Tautavel, our long history before Neanderthalpublished by Albin Michel (192 pages, 24.90 euros). A fascinating dive into the footsteps of our most distant ancestors, who left us a tiny part of our genetic heritage.