Upper Paleolithic skull from Abri Pataud (France, Dordogne): cranial and dental studies

Abstract

It has been almost ifty years since the irst publica- tionofthesocalledprotomagdalenianskull from Abri-Pataud. Recently the skull in ques- tion,designatedasPataud1,hasbeenre-dat- ed and attributed to the inal stage of Gravet- tian. This important paleoanthropological ind has never been described in detail in Russian scientiic literature. Here, the authors present a re-description and new facial reconstruction oftheskullbasedontheirst-handexamina- tion of the specimen. The article starts with an overview of the history of the study of Pa- taud1skull,afterwhichitmorespeciicallyfo- cuses on its metrics and detailed description of its cranial and dental traits. The compari- son of Pataud 1 with the Upper Paleolithic hu- mans from Italy and Moravia reveals a number ofdistinctivefeaturesinthemorphologyofthe individual from Abri-Pataud.