Disentangling Cro-Magnon: A multiproxy approach to reassociate lower limb skeletal remains and to determine the biological profiles of the adult individuals

Abstract

Cro-Magnon is one of the most famous archeological sites in the World, but few scholars are aware that the human remains from this shelter have been commingled since 1868 and that only one comprehensive attempt to reassociate the bones has been published, more than fifty years ago. The aim of this article is to present the results of a multiproxy approach applied in order to reassociate the main bones of the lower limbs (including the pelvis) of the adults from Cro-Magnon. We used a classical approach (i.e. the study of size, morphology, and surface alterations of the bones), combined with tools from virtual anthropology, namely maximum length estimations, virtual test of morphometrical similarities between possible pairs, virtual test of articular congruence, and visual comparisons of cortical thickness of long bones. From the 26 bones from the lower limb under This discovery quickly led to excavations in or around the shelter and, in less than 50 years, it was emptied (Henry-Gambier, et al., 2013a). However these "excavations" did not produced any useful documentation on the stratigraphy of the site, and the main data were those provided by Lartet in 1868 (Henry-Gambier, et al., 2013a). Artifacts associated with the Aurignacian, the Gravettian and the Solutrean cultures were identified at Cro-Magnon (Henry-Gambier, et al., 2013a). The human remains were for long time considered as dating from the Early Aurignacian but it has been demonstrated that they are most likely associated with the Early phase of the Gravettian (33-31000 Cal. BP) (Henry-Gambier, 2002, Henry-Gambier, et al., 2013a) 1 .

The Cro-Magnon babies: Morphology and mortuary implications of the Cro-Magnon immature remains

“…Cro-Magnon adult bones as well (Henry-Gambier, 2008a;Thibeault and Villotte, 2018). In any case, it is evident that the children in Cro-Magnon were treated in a similar way to the adults, which is consistent with other Paleolithic sites.…”

“…The method of Braga and colleagues (2019) is based on cochlear shape and that of Stewart et al (2017) on tooth enamel peptides. aDNA could not be considered due to the rarity of the remains and its destructive requirements (Thibeault and Villotte, 2018). As with the adult remains, and the evidence for their burial (Lartet, 1868), these infants were therefore likely to have been buried with or adjacent to the adults.…”

“…However, this question remains of interest considering the abundance of developmental anomalies in the Pleistocene fossil record (Trinkaus, 2018), to the point that they may indicate a high level of inbreeding (Wu et al, 2013;Ríos et al, 2015;Sparacello et al, 2018;Trinkaus, 2018). If the individual to whom CM 4252-5 belonged had abnormalities evident to the social group, as was the case for Cro-Magnon 1 whose skeletal lesions indicate a systemic and rare disease (Dastugue, 1967;Thillaud, 1985;Charlier et al, 2018;Ruggieri et al, 2018;Thibeault and Villotte, 2018), this condition may have played an important role in group behavior towards him/her, and particularly after his/her death. As previously noted (Oliva, 1996;Formicola 2007;Trinkaus et al, 2014), Gravettian burials contain an unusually high number of individuals with both developmental and degenerative conditions.…”

“…In the original reports, the skeletal remains were identified as those of four adults and one neonate (Broca, 1868;Lartet, 1868). The ages and sexes of three of the adults have recently been re-evaluated: two males and one female, all of them being old or very old (Gambier et al, 2006;Thibeault and Villotte, 2018). A fragment of cranial vault (Broca, 1868, Vallois and Billy 1965) and a few infra-cranial elements represent a fourth adult (Villotte et al, in prep).…”

“…Although relative bone proportions may sometimes vary among populations (Schultz, 1923), adults (Trinkaus et al, 2014), including those from Cro-Magnon (Thibeault and Villotte, 2018), may imply that neonates were longer than their modern counterparts. As the length at birth of CM5-3 is estimated at around 52.4±1.6 cm based on left femur 4252-2 (cf.…”