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00:00Before the long history of mankind led to the emergence of modern man, other human
00:26species, now extinct, inhabited the earth. For more than 300,000 years, Neanderthal men wandered
00:34vast territories from Western Europe to the Altai, crossing the Middle East and Central Asia.
00:46About 800,000 years ago, a group of Neanderthals left traces of their journey in the sand dunes of
00:53the Normandy coast.
01:23Since 2011, archaeologist Dominic Cliquet has been exploring the Le Rosel site in Normandy.
01:31Each year, in the summer months, the excavations bring to light several hundred footprints belonging
01:36to one of the most famous prehistoric men, Neanderthal man.
01:40You see a straight foot foot?
01:41Yeah!
01:42Where is that?
01:43A straight foot foot?
01:44A straight foot?
01:45Yeah!
01:46I see!
01:47Where is it?
01:48No, I see!
01:49Here I see!
01:50I think!
01:51I think too!
01:52I think it is a little bit.
01:53Ok.
01:54The sand has a importance or not at all.
01:58Yes.
01:59A drôle de gueule, this is a foot, this is a foot, it is a foot, it is a foot.
02:02It is a foot, it is a foot a bit bigger than the others, but I wonder if it is not the
02:06foot that is glist.
02:07This is the original site,
02:09which is that human fingerprints are associated
02:12in a certain way to the Nandertalian.
02:37Here, we can see a very beautiful imprint of adult.
02:55You can distinguish very clearly the talons,
02:58the plantaer, the gros orteils,
03:01and the other orteils.
03:03This imprint is exceptional because
03:05it is really a mine of information
03:08for the morphology of the Nandertalian.
03:12There are some specific conditions
03:15to be preserved,
03:17and these conditions are obtained
03:19mainly due to the oil dynamics.
03:22Regularly, on a rather argile sand,
03:25it is placed on an oil sable,
03:28a ported by the wind.
03:30This creek, in fact, is a natural
03:35which has preserved,
03:37to our days, the sable
03:39which was brought up by the wind,
03:41with the constitution of a very large mass
03:43of the Nandertalian,
03:44since we are on a 20 square meters
03:47of the water.
03:48This is the water level
03:49which allowed us to preserve the emprunts
03:50in the way that the pre-historics
03:51that were on the site
03:52march on these walls
03:54which were relatively tense.
03:56The water level of water
03:58which allowed us to preserve the emprunts
04:01in the way that the pre-historics
04:04that were on the site
04:05were walking on these walls
04:07which were relatively tense.
04:11The accumulation of sable
04:13coulée de boue,
04:14etc.
04:15for several thousands of years.
04:17The sea has ronged the massif
04:20of the Nandertalian
04:21and put in evidence
04:22the vestiges
04:23corresponding
04:24to the pre-historical occupations.
04:32Bit by bit,
04:33the sea nibbles away
04:34at the entire coastline,
04:35revealing and destroying
04:37many archaeological remains.
04:39With each storm,
04:41with each tide,
04:42the water corrodes
04:43the dew range
04:44a little more
04:45and carries away
04:46part of the pre-historical layers
04:47of the Lo Rezao.
04:52This rise of the marine level
04:54that little by little
04:55has hit the site
04:56in relation
04:57with the climate warming
04:58we had a part of the site
04:59which was carried out.
05:01We were forced
05:02to implement
05:04the conservation measures
05:05and the obligation
05:07to make an enrochement
05:08to protect the feet
05:10of the sea.
05:11We had to preserve
05:12the site
05:13during the drought
05:14and then
05:15to make the sea
05:16of the sea
05:17before the marine level
05:18rise
05:19to the archeological levels.
05:21despite the rip-rap,
05:27the Lo Rezao site
05:28is really in danger.
05:30In order to outpace the sea,
05:34Dominic Cliquet
05:35decided to launch
05:36a rescue excavation
05:37on the most exposed
05:38part of the site.
05:39So since 2012,
05:41throughout the three months
05:42of summer,
05:43a team of volunteers
05:44and archeology students
05:45is busy excavating
05:46the fragile levels
05:47of prehistoric
05:48occupations
05:49still in place.
05:50Each excavation operation
05:52is an opportunity
05:53for extraordinary discoveries.
05:55And here,
05:57there is a small foot
05:59with small orteils
06:00apparently,
06:01and the left,
06:02too long.
06:03Yes.
06:04There is a small foot
06:05with small orteils,
06:06like small orteils,
06:08and another one
06:10over here.
06:11I will ask for confirmation.
06:12Dominic,
06:13it's to you that I'm talking about?
06:14Yes,
06:15I'm thinking about this.
06:16Dominic,
06:17it's to you that I'm talking about?
06:18Yes.
06:19All right,
06:20in the rest of the time,
06:21I thought it was maybe
06:22more...
06:23it would be more like this.
06:24Ah,
06:25on the left side too,
06:27in fact.
06:28Yes.
06:29Yes.
06:30Yes,
06:31I already see it better.
06:32Yes,
06:33it's the foot.
06:34Yes,
06:35the vampire here.
06:37Here,
06:39we had the chance
06:41to have the conditions
06:43of conservation
06:44very exceptional.
06:45Yes,
06:46I saw it earlier,
06:47there were a few feet
06:48and a few feet,
06:49there were a few feet,
06:50there were a few feet,
06:51but these are the ones
06:52currently known
06:53in the world
06:54for this period.
06:55Often,
06:56it's the pinceau
06:57or the pinceau
06:58to make sure
06:59to be able to see
07:00the levels of empreintes
07:01which are very fragile
07:02and ephemeral.
07:06It's the reason
07:07for which
07:08we put the resin
07:09if we let them
07:10or expose them
07:11to the wind
07:12and they're structured
07:13in a very rapid way.
07:17Here,
07:18I have a little fissure
07:19but a little bit
07:20of sable
07:21or not?
07:22No,
07:23you replace the long
07:24and just a little bit
07:25with the spoon
07:26just to be able
07:27to remove the suture.
07:28Ok,
07:29d'accord.
07:30Yes.
07:31We have also
07:33this kind of challenge.
07:34We have also
07:36this kind of challenge.
07:38It's that
07:39when we have
07:40released these
07:41which are
07:42fugaces,
07:43we must be able
07:44to consolidate
07:45this information
07:46and then,
07:47of course,
07:48to study it
07:49and to transmit
07:50this information
07:51in the future
07:52which, I hope,
07:53will quickly
07:54have other
07:55methods of investigation.
07:56For this period,
08:07there are only 9 other
08:09empreintes known
08:10for the world
08:11nandertalian
08:12since,
08:13at the end of this
08:14campaign,
08:15we will arrive
08:16at more
08:17of 1550
08:18human empreintes
08:19which makes
08:20this site
08:21a unique site
08:22and,
08:23especially,
08:24a great base
08:25of reference
08:26for the study
08:28of the locomotion,
08:29the stature
08:30of individuals,
08:31the mass corporeal,
08:32the dynamic
08:33of the march
08:34of these pre-historic
08:35of the
08:47neandertalian
08:48neandertal man,
08:49Homo neandertalensis,
08:50owes his name
08:51to the valley
08:52of Neander in Germany
08:53where the first
08:54bones were discovered
08:55in 1856
08:56as well as
08:57a fragment
08:58of a skull
08:59that allowed
09:00the identification
09:01of this new species
09:02of the genus
09:03Homo.
09:04In German, the name Neanderthal literally means Valley of the New Man.
09:09But this new man, baptised by prehistoric science still in its infancy,
09:14was to suffer for a long time from the many prejudices that strongly influence its first representations.
09:34The small grot of Feldhofer, in 1856,
09:37allowed to define scientifically the Neanderthal at the end of the 19th century.
09:43Sur this crâne, for example,
09:45researchers of the time have noticed that the crâne crânien seemed quite low,
09:51this crâne very elongated,
09:53the robustness of the earth,
09:55particularly at the surface of the suborbital region,
09:58with what we call a torus suborbital,
10:00which continues from the orbit to the other,
10:03and a encephalic volume, which was considered quite small.
10:08And it's based on this morphology that scientists of the time
10:11thought that Neanderthals were very primitive beings
10:15with cognitive abilities close to those of the great wolves.
10:19But as soon as we progress our knowledge,
10:22our view of the Neanderthal has completely changed.
10:26Since the end of the 19th century,
10:32the discovery of Neanderthal bones have multiplied all over Europe and well beyond.
10:38On these sites, the prehistoric levels also provide many carved flints,
10:43as well as fragments of carvings revealing a real Neanderthal craftsmanship in the making of tools.
10:49In Normandy, very few bones of Homo Neanderthalensis have been found.
10:56On the other hand, numerous sites have yielded some flint tools
10:59that attest to the presence of Neanderthal groups in these territories of Western Europe.
11:04in the West, at that time,
11:05the
11:06new
11:08Robert
11:09in the West
11:11that
11:13the
11:15The
11:16Mischi
11:17is
11:18designed
11:19to
11:20be
11:21taken
11:22while
11:23the
11:24팔
11:25is
11:26quite
11:27the
11:30So, I'll try to make it more small, I'll try to hit it in the perpendicular
11:39to hit it there, and normally it should go like this.
11:53Yes!
11:55He is beautiful?
11:57He is beautiful a little bit.
11:59He would be more far than that if he was not grazed?
12:01If he was not grazed, he would not have been grazed.
12:05It was not gained, he is superb.
12:07He is superb.
12:09He is all bluffing.
12:11The experiment was aiming to reproduce a glow with the technique levallois.
12:17The technique levallois is mainly associated with the name of Nandertal
12:23which consists of preparing a face of a nucleus
12:27to get out of predetermined shapes,
12:31depending on another face, a kind of dome in the shape of another tortoise.
12:35And here we find a concept that we have in all archaeological levels on the site of Le Roselle.
12:45The Le Roselle prehistoric site was discovered in 1967 by Yves Ruppin,
12:50a researcher who followed the erosion of cliffs and foreshores on the Contentan coast.
12:56On the sides of the Cape du Pou, at the foot of a small rocky cavity,
13:00a remnant of a sandgene that has been recently eroded by the sea,
13:03delivers some flints associated with the remains of household and bones of mammals.
13:08At the end of the 1960s, the first excavations revealed the new prehistoric remains,
13:15including flint blades carved by a method then thought to have been exclusively mastered by Homo sapiens, modern men.
13:22For the archaeologists of the time, the Le Roselle site can only date from the Upper Paleolithic,
13:28the period in which Neanderthal men disappeared, giving way to Homo sapiens.
13:33Since the excavations that he carried out at Port Rancin,
13:39Dominic Cliquet knows that this systematic attribution of this flint-napping process to Homo sapiens raises questions.
13:45Homo sapiens raises questions.
13:48Here we had the Neanderthal occupations, verres, with a lot of demoralists.
13:53That is, that is the place where our craftsmen cut the silex,
13:59which will be used as tools for their work of mining.
14:03The stratigraphic sequence revealed during these excavations shows clearly that these flints are associated with these flints.
14:26geological levels dating from 70,000 years ago during the peak of the Neanderthal period.
14:39As at Port Rancin, the stratigraphic sections made by Dominic at Le Roselle show that these residues of flat debris are in fact associated with levels of occupation prior to the arrival of Homo sapiens.
14:51Whatever the technique used, producing a flint tool is a complex process that requires significant cognitive abilities.
15:04We realize that we have a predetermination from the moment when the person collects the first material.
15:11Then, when there is an intention to produce something, there is a succession of gestures that are already pressenties
15:24so that we can arrive to produce a tool or an eclipse of predetermined form.
15:30The Neanderthalians, for creating their tools, have needed to have invented cognitively the present, the present, the future, the future.
15:59The anticipation, the gestures, the possibility to transmit this knowledge, to tell stories.
16:08If the question of the existence of an articulated language in Neanderthal man has long agitated the scientific community, the discovery of an exceptional Neanderthal burial site at the site of Kebara does not leave any more doubts.
16:25On a before us a very beautiful moulage of the tomb of Kebara 2, a Neanderthalian found on the actual territory of Israel.
16:35And it is currently one of the skeletons of an adult Neanderthalians of the Levant, among the best preserved ones.
16:42The crowd has allowed to discover, almost in the anatomical position at the level of the cervical vertebrae,
16:50of an osteoide, of an osteoide complete, and it is, I think, the only osteoide complete of Neanderthalian known in the world.
16:59The osteoide is this little ossement, which is located at the bottom of our pome d'Adam,
17:06and which is very involved in the relationship of a whole part of the mouth and the trachée, etc.
17:12And the discovery has allowed us to show that, for this ossement, there was no anatomical difference between Neanderthalians and Neanderthalians.
17:21So, biology, whether it be osseuses or what we could deduce from the organization of the brain of Neanderthalians,
17:29was not at all for the hypothesis of a lesser language capacity.
17:34Language as proof of humanity. But the words slip away. It is impossible to find its trace in the ground, contrary to other relics.
17:50Language as proof of humanity.
18:02Here, we are on a zone déboulis, with a lot of schiste plaquettes and blocks of schiste that have fallen.
18:08And here, I'm digging a building of a basement structure, with dirt and sanded areas.
18:15So, we've already been able to find out on a higher level of carbon or sanded areas, for the chemical analysis.
18:21And I continue to climb this level, at the same time, to raise the carbon, and try to find the limits of the area.
18:32The chemical analysis carried out confirmed that these hearths were used for cooking or smoking meat or skins.
18:38The associated bones give us information on the main animals hunted by the Neanderthals of Lerozel.
18:44The deer, the auroch, and the horse.
18:48What is interesting, is to have environmental data from these animals.
18:53We know that these animals are characteristics of a rather tempered environment environment.
18:58We know that these animals are characteristics of a rather tempered environment environment.
19:15We have a lot of wood wood, in very large dimensions,
19:20even fragments of carbon dioxide,
19:22which give us the essence of the plants used by the pre-historic plants.
19:26And of course, the vegetation is the environment.
19:29So, from all these elements, we are able to find an environmental environment
19:35which gives us indications of the biotopes in which evolved our pre-historic plants.
19:44We are in the presence of human human groups,
19:47which circulated on the territories,
19:50calculated on the circulation of big herbivores.
19:53And it's the whole group that moves.
20:00We know that they were there in the bad season,
20:03so autumn, summer, summer, summer, summer.
20:06But during the summer, they went abroad.
20:09As the guys at the time were hunters, collectors,
20:12they followed the cast-coupes, as we say.
20:15The site is a natural shelter in a creek with the dominant winds,
20:26a place of observation to observe the circulation of the troops.
20:31And then, with the marine level lower than the current level,
20:35we had this mass mass of rocks that emerged from the plains,
20:40which was one of the structural elements
20:43allowing the prehistoric population to see the landscape.
20:5180,000 years ago, the landscape around L'Orezel
20:54looked completely different.
20:56The ocean level was significantly lower.
20:58A vast grassy plain, punctuated by sand dunes, extends to the sea,
21:02whose coastline is located about one or two kilometres from the current beach.
21:07In such a landscape, the promontory of L'Orezel
21:10with its high-sheast cliff emerges from the horizon.
21:15A strip of land connects the Channel Islands to the mainland.
21:23A few kilometres away, on the island of Jersey,
21:25the rocky promontory of La Côte de Saint-Brelayde stands out in the landscape.
21:31The discoveries made on this site since the 19th century
21:37suggest different Neanderthal occupations ranging from 250,000 years
21:42and the extinction of the Neanderthals.
21:47For several years, the British archaeologist Matt Pope
21:50has undertaken new investigations on the site.
21:53This year, we are beginning a programme to save the site effectively from climate change
22:00and coastal erosion.
22:01Since 1940, coastal erosion with sea level has cut back
22:0610 metres of ice-age sediment forming a very steep, unstable cliff.
22:10We know we have periods in time represented in the sequence
22:17where temperatures are as warm as today
22:19and sea level is as high as it is today
22:21but these are very small periods in time.
22:23For much of La Côte's history, the sea has been much lower
22:27and the temperature has been much colder.
22:29Jersey sits in the middle of this wonderful submerged landscape of the Normano Breton Gulf.
22:41Normandy is just about visible, Brittany is not visible
22:46but the landscapes between them are the landscapes in which Neanderthal people were moving
22:50and hunting and living.
22:52La Côte de Saint-Brelayde is a feature in that landscape
22:56that they are coming back to again and again.
22:58In addition to the Neanderthal teeth that allowed us to identify the occupants of the site,
23:07the ancient excavations deliver numerous bones of animals
23:11whose mysterious arrangements have intrigued archaeologists.
23:21Neanderthal people, they bring in mammoth skulls, mammoth ribs, mammoth tusks
23:27and they create structures with these bones.
23:32These are not sculptures, these are not monuments
23:36but they are not rubbish because they are built in very specific ways.
23:41The skulls are put up on end, the ribs are laid along these skulls
23:48and then tusks are placed over the top.
23:51The big rib bones of woolly rhinoceros and mammoth are placed on top of each other
23:57and in some places ribs are driven through the skull to anchor them in place.
24:02And it's a very exciting thing to try and understand and try and reconstruct.
24:15For the modern man that we are, it seems very difficult not to project our own way of being in the world onto the Neanderthal.
24:21Perhaps our cultural filters prevent us from approaching the mental universe of the Neanderthals
24:27and from understanding some of their achievements.
24:30Between alterity and universality, how can we successfully reflect on this other humanity
24:36from the partial clues that have reached us?
24:39So all this is the Fouille 2012.
24:42They have been consolidated?
24:43Yes.
24:44They have been placed in parallel.
24:46Yes.
24:47184.
24:49I don't know if there are things that talk about it.
24:54Yes, it's funny.
24:55Yes, it's an announcement of a young individual.
24:58It's mature.
25:00It's in 2014 after.
25:026831.
25:04Can we tell you something about that?
25:07It's complicated because it's really concassable.
25:12It's an aile.
25:13I have no idea.
25:14I have no idea.
25:15I have no idea.
25:16I have no idea.
25:17I have no idea.
25:18It looks like a numerus here.
25:19So we might have to have an aile.
25:216830.
25:22It's an aile of loa.
25:24It's a radius.
25:26So it's an os of an aile of a large oisee.
25:29It's interesting because it's on this part of the aile
25:34that are the large plumes of vol, which are often exploited.
25:37We have instantaneously.
25:39We have things that are very demonstrative
25:42and that they allow us to touch the daily life.
25:44However, what we don't manage is the depth of the time
25:47between the formation of these elements,
25:50the length of the time that is passed
25:52between the levels that we are studying
25:54and the levels superior
25:55that we have the first vestiges
25:57in position prime.
25:58I think that,
26:01in the state of conservation,
26:02you will be surprised.
26:03Yes, I already surprised.
26:05The collection is in a state of conservation
26:07really exceptional.
26:09If we have 80.000 years,
26:12it's crazy for a site of plein air.
26:15The surface surface is perfectly visible.
26:18It's really impressive.
26:21The first osements that we have found,
26:23we were also sidérés.
26:24Like we have the amas of the habitat just at the side,
26:27the couteau de boucherie with the retouches
26:29which have been made with the air-couchoirs en os.
26:32We have the air-couchoirs en os associated.
26:34So, for example,
26:36it's quite exceptional.
26:38Yes, yes.
26:39It's more likely to use
26:40that you might need to play,
26:41Quentin.
26:42They are the toes.
26:43The phalanges
26:44posterior
26:45of the necturne
26:46of the rapace
26:47I would say
26:48awesome, then.
26:49Yes,
26:50all right.
26:51That's potentially very important.
26:53There are other examples where the rapaces nocturnes have been used as colliers, as amulets.
27:09Feathers of large birds or raptors claws, these remains call to mind elements of adornment also found on other Neanderthal sites.
27:17But at Lirazel, on slightly older settlement grounds, these same remains of birds associated with other relics have intrigued archaeologists.
27:30A block of hematite, a red iron oxide, found near a stone millstone, having served for grinding this natural dye, raises questions about what prehistoric people could have used it for.
27:40Was it used as an antiseptic in the treatment of animal skins that might have been used as clothing?
27:47Or was this dye used in painting, on wood or skins, or as body paint for ostentatious purposes?
27:55It's still a mystery.
27:57If the rock art developed by Homo sapiens during the prehistoric period clearly proves the antiquity of a symbolic thinking among our species, the evidence of such a thought in Homo neanderthalensis have long remained controversial.
28:14In the current state of research, no evidence really proves the development of any form of art among Neanderthals.
28:20However, the re-examination of the context of discovery of certain Neanderthal skeletons allows us to re-evaluate the symbolic thinking ability of this species.
28:31At the beginning of the 20th century, the site of La Ferracie in Dedong provided pre-historians with the remains of seven Neanderthal individuals.
28:39La Ferracie, c'est dans le monde, avec le très célèbre site de Shanidar dans le Kurdistan irakien, le gisement qui a livré le plus grand nombre de squelettes neanderthaliens actuellement connues.
28:50Nous sommes en présence ici d'un tirage avec une imprimante 3D d'un scan surfacique de l'ensemble des ossements de l'individu de La Ferracie 1 lors de la découverte et lors de la fouille de ce corps.
29:08Il va y avoir des photos, il va y avoir un panel de scientifiques qui vont être invités à participer à la fouille et qui vont faire des observations.
29:15L'un d'entre eux est le très célèbre abbé Henri Breuil. Il va décrire des éléments de cette sépulture, tels que la présence de ces blocs autour du corps, mais aussi le fait qu'il y avait une dépression sous le corps et que des sédiments de ce niveau sous-jacent étaient remontés au-dessus du corps, permettant de prouver qu'il y avait creusement volontaire une fosse funéraire.
29:39Pour que ces corps ait été conservé, il faut nécessairement qu'il y ait eu un acte volontaire, visant à protéger le corps des athènes du temps, des activités des carnivores.
29:51Et donc il y a cette envie de traiter respectueusement le défunt, qui, en tout cas selon moi, démontre que ces néandertaliens s'interrogeaient sur le côté dramatique de la mort d'un des leurs.
30:05Today, the oldest known burials are those of Neanderthals. Beyond the attention they seem to accord to their deceased, some of the graves also reveal to us the particular attention that Neanderthals accorded to the living people.
30:19This is the case for the famous skeleton of the Chappel-aux-Song in Corrèze, the first to be officially recognized as a Neanderthal burial ground in 1908.
30:28Nous sommes en présence d'un individu qu'on appelle le vieillard, parce qu'il a plusieurs atteintes pathologiques sur pratiquement tout son corps.
30:36Il présente beaucoup de signes d'arthrose sur quasiment toutes ses vertèbres, y compris au niveau de son bassin.
30:41Et on peut s'apercevoir également sur sa mandibule, ici, qu'on a une résorption qui ne peut se faire que parce que ce sujet avait perdu toutes ses dents après cette dent-ci que nous voyons,
30:53ce qui fait qu'on considère que c'était un adulte d'âge avancé.
30:58Toutes ces atteintes pathologiques quasiment nous assurent qu'un individu, à ce point diminué, au sein de populations qui, ne l'oublions pas, sont des chasseurs-cueilleurs-collecteurs,
31:08donc qui sont beaucoup mobiles, devait être forcément pris en charge par son groupe.
31:12Et que ces groupes de Néandertaliens, avec des cellules familiales qui étaient réunies, avaient très probablement des sentiments d'empathie, d'amour vis-à -vis des membres de leur fratrie.
31:27Les gestes funéraires des Néandertaliens sont variés.
31:30Ils inument des adultes, masculins, féminins, des enfants qui arrivent à ce qu'on appelle nous l'adolescence.
31:36Ils inument des tout petits-enfants, non-sevrés, des bébés, etc.
31:40Les Néandertaliens considéraient les Néandertaliens comme des éléments importants de leur société, de leur groupe, des vivants,
31:47parce qu'ils ont accordé à ces Néandertaliens une attention très particulière à les inhumants.
31:52À la Ferracie, on a un individu, c'est un fœtus, qui a été volontairement inhumé.
31:57Donc c'est une fausse couche qui est arrivée à cette femme Néandertalienne, qui a eu ce petit bébé qu'on appelle nous la Ferracie V.
32:04On a cinq Néandertaliens inhumés.
32:06On ne connaît pas cinq nouveaux-nés d'hommes anatomiquement modernes inhumés au cours du paléolithique supérieur.
32:14Nos ancêtres les plus directs dans la préhistoire n'ont pas traité les corps des nouveaux-nés comme les Néandertaliens ont traité les corps de leurs nouveaux-nés.
32:24These children's, or newborn's tombs, give us a glimpse of the importance that the Néandertals could grant to their offspring.
32:37At the Roselle, the numerous small footprints found by the archaeologists seem to indicate that the group occupying the premises
32:44was made up of a significant proportion of children, whose activity probably also had a greater impact on the soil than the activity of adults.
32:52Prints of children, a little hung.
32:59That would be very large, but maybe the hand then pushed back.
33:03Mm-hm, yes, pushed back the sediment.
33:06Yeah.
33:06In 2022, Ashley Wiseman, a British archaeologist specialist of ancient traces, joined the La Roselle team.
33:26Her expertise in fingerprint analysis soon proved to be extremely valuable.
33:30This is a Neanderthal handprint of a child, a juvenile, and we can see the thumbprint and all four of the fingers, just here.
33:43So we see a mixture of adult footprints with child footprints, and we see some handprints,
33:49and the interaction of those footprints and how they move can tell us a lot about the social group,
33:54and how they interacted, and even just how children, 80,000 years ago, were moving around.
34:02Donc ici, on a une belle séquence d'empreintes d'enfants.
34:06On est dans un couloir de passage, avec des empreintes à faible relief, mais quand même très parlantes.
34:12Ici, on voit le talon.
34:13L'avant du pied.
34:15Ici, un talon.
34:16L'avant du pied, avec ce qui reste de l'empreinte du gros orteil.
34:24Certaines zones où les poinçonnements d'enfants sont particulièrement nombreux suggèrent que nous sommes sur des zones correspondant à des sortes de garderies
34:35où les enfants étaient vraisemblablement sous la surveillance d'individus plus âgés, comme le suggèrent certaines empreintes de pied.
34:44Alors actuellement, avec les méthodes dont on dispose, on suppose que ces groupes sont constitués de 15 à une vingtaine d'individus,
34:57avec apparemment un nombre d'enfants relativement important.
35:01Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada
35:31On a des morphologies qui évoquent des pieds chaussés, des pieds remballés.
35:37Donc là , on va avoir recours à l'expérimentation.
35:43Je ne sais pas, je galète cette année à lasser mes chaussures.
35:47Je me sens mal dans ma peau.
35:49Je ne sais pas, je n'ai pas ressenti d'humidité pour l'instant, c'est déjà peu mal.
36:17Et ça a l'air visiblement de bien couvrir et de...
36:22Je pense qu'ils pouvaient clairement porter ça à l'époque.
36:25Est-ce que c'était le pied ?
36:27C'était le pied.
36:28Le fait de porter la peau, je me suis rendu compte que c'était assez agréable
36:40et que ça permettait de limiter tous les impacts, par exemple des cailloux, du schiste,
36:44sur lesquels on peut marcher.
36:46Donc, je pense que c'était un bon compromis pour se tenir au chaud et limiter les blessures.
36:53On a fait l'expérimentation.
36:59Les pieds enveloppés dans une peau très souple ont la même morphologie qu'un pied nu.
37:02On voit, on distingue très, très bien la voûte plantaire, les orteils,
37:07le petit espace entre les orteils et la voûte plantaire.
37:10Donc, en fait, quand la peau est souple, on ne peut pas faire le distingu.
37:13...
37:13...
37:13...
37:15...
37:16...
37:17To try to go further in the distinction between barefoot and shod feet,
37:20the team embarks on various experiments under Ashley's control.
37:25A precise procedure to reproduce the effects of moisture variations in soils
37:29with different clay contents is implemented.
37:31Do you think we should fill all of them and then do the water,
37:40or do one first and then do the water?
37:45Oh, yours a bus.
37:47Mm-hm.
37:51So, we have six boxes on site,
37:53and all six of these boxes have been filled with sediment
37:56that we have taken from the fossil beds.
37:58And we are increasing the water content,
38:01and we have made this prehistoric shoe made of goat skin.
38:05And we're testing what the footprints look like
38:08when we walk in those different boxes
38:10with different water contents
38:11versus how it looks without the goat skin
38:14to try to determine if the Neanderthals
38:16might have been wearing shoes on site or not.
38:18During the experiments, we took many, many photographs,
38:33and with those photographs, we can use a method called photogrammetry
38:37to create a 3D model that we can have on the computer of the footprints.
38:40And we took many of these 3D models of all the experimental footprints,
38:44and we take them of all of the fossil footprints as well.
38:50Our preliminary results were very, very promising.
38:53So, what we'd done was we had some sand and we increased more water,
38:58but in those early studies with little bits of water,
39:01we couldn't see any difference between an unshod and a shod footprint.
39:06They looked the same.
39:07And if the sand was very dry,
39:10then no, we couldn't decipher if they wore shoes or not.
39:13But as we started to increase more and more water,
39:15we started to see those differences.
39:17We started to see the foot, and we started to see the footwear.
39:21And there were very, very distinct differences,
39:23and those morphologies are what we're seeing on site.
39:26So, yes, I do think we have started to prove
39:29that we've got footprints wearing footwear on site.
39:37So, yes, I do think we have started to prove
39:40that we've got footprints wearing footwear on site.
39:42We've got the origin of the shoes in the time.
39:46The most old shoes of shoes were about 30 000 years.
39:51Those of them would be 80 000 years,
39:55which would make a bond of 50 000 years in the time.
39:58Contrairement à ce que l'on a pensé pendant de nombreuses années
40:12à propos de Néandertal avec cette image de sauvage,
40:15on voit de plus en plus qu'effectivement,
40:17il avait un savoir-faire, des technologies, des techniques
40:20et une adaptation à son milieu, à son environnement
40:23qui était remarquable et qu'il était autant capable que nous
40:27de vivre, voire plus capable, de vivre avec son milieu.
40:32Ce sont des individus qui ont parfaitement compris
40:35toutes les subtilités de leur environnement,
40:37qui ont fabriqué des techniques opératoires
40:39pour fabriquer des outils qui accompagnent leur mobilité.
40:42Ils sont tout aussi humains que n'importe quel groupe
40:45d'hommes préhistoriques non-néandertaliens
40:48qui vivent sur la Terre en même temps qu'eux.
40:53Les Néandertaliens sont complètement humains.
40:55Les Néandertaliens sont complètement humains dansальную façon
41:23recognize it as being so human and as long as we start to really recognize
41:27that the shared human collective adaptation is culture and that Neanderthal
41:34people have cultures in the same way that we have cultures then we realize
41:39there is plasticity there there is potential for Neanderthal people to to
41:44achieve incredible things given the right circumstances so I think it is
41:50time we fully embrace them and other human species that are contemporary into
41:55into the human family
41:58well this is very funny yeah it's quite a characteristic of our young people on the site who can not
42:10be displaced without a portable phone we are doing eight turns it's not worth the
42:15cool we push back to the guy who finit par vider sa poubelle dans la mer sacré message je détruis le milieu
42:27d'où je viens et même le cliquetus vulgaris simple ex fondamental in 1965 the illustration entitled
42:45the march of progress by rudolph zalenga was published for the first time today criticized
42:51by scientists for the overly simplistic vision of evolution that it transmits this illustration is
42:56however completely anchored in the popular culture that regularly generates a number of parodies
43:01this freeze is totally coherent in the measure where we have the different individuals who have lived
43:09for 2 millions of years well of course with the knowledge of the time since we could
43:15characterize some species and complete the family table but here what is also interesting is to see that
43:25before the 90's 90's 2000 we didn't worry about whether it was a woman or a woman there was the species
43:33and the species was systematically represented by a woman
43:37hello mesdames
43:39then we start to see an illustrator who figures as couples so we have the man and the woman represented here
43:47there is an opening on the prehistoric woman and as the proverb said behind each great man even
43:59prehistoric there is a woman
44:01if it is still very difficult for prehistoriants to have a precise idea of the place of women
44:10throughout prehistory representations however are changing little by little from now on whether it
44:16is for neanderthal or other human species the prehistoric lady sometimes overshadows the gentleman
44:21the key feature of zalangazade is its ability to make us instantly grasp the idea of evolution
44:32as advocated by darwin but this representation of a linear evolution giving a rushed reader the
44:37illusion that sapiens succeeded neanderthal hides the coexistence of these species for over 150 000 years
44:45a long period during which neanderthal and sapiens are however meeting and mingling on several
44:50occasions as proven by the one to four percent of the neanderthal dna present in the genome of a
44:56large part of current humans
45:04this linear representation also induces another idea underlined by the title of the artwork the march of
45:10progress the idea of a superiority of sapiens over neanderthal making us sapiens the modern men the
45:18necessary outcome of this long march
45:24perhaps zalinger's work deserves some updating
45:30regularly new species are being discovered
45:33but if the evolution is not linear a tree-like representation will not work either as we still
45:39have difficulty in determining the possible relationships between the species
45:44perhaps the paleogenomics will be able to answer this question one day putting it into perspective
45:49however allows us to represent the simultaneous paths of species who like neanderthals and sapiens
45:55sometimes cross paths to the point it seems of going a long way together until neanderthal disappeared
46:01the disappearance of the neanderthal is always a wonderful subject super debated all the people
46:10have to find the solution there are 13 or 15 hypotheses which have been proposed now there are
46:14no one who takes the route all alone in any case we can't understand this disappearance of the neanderthal
46:19they are adapted to Europe for hundreds of thousands of years
46:25I think it may be linked to the combination of a number of factors both climatic and environmental
46:32and maybe cultural also
46:34of course the neanderthal will disappear around 45000
46:39maybe less than for the recent ones but the first human atomically modern
46:45people who arrive in Europe central to around 45000
46:49people who have exchanged genes with the neanderthal
46:51and these human populations human atomically modern
46:55disappear also or in any case they don't leave a descendant genetic
46:58in the human today
47:00so it's not only the neanderthal who disappear at this moment
47:03but also other human human modern
47:05biologically very close to us and who don't encounter the success
47:09evolutive that we know now
47:10it's other human groups who will encounter the success
47:13evolutive so it's a question of a completely different way
47:15so it's a question of a completely different
47:25the pre-histoire ancienne is a long construction and déconstruction
47:29we bring a stone, we remove one, we remove one, we remove two, we remove one
47:33we remove one, we remove one and only we remove five, we remove three different
47:35different energies
47:37so it's not nothing you can talk about
47:39or is someone stone is building a small paper
47:41ghanori and the collection
47:42this is what is important
47:44we make the investment of all plants
47:46thatuldade has also knowledge
47:48about creating the history of our human
47:50and to know how to commit you
47:53we are born
47:55It will probably take another three to four years for the archaeologists to complete
48:03the excavation of the part of the site most threatened by the rise in sea level.
48:08But for the time being, the remains found in certain archaeological layers, under the
48:12Neanderthal occupation levels still raise questions.
48:25So we would have the first incursion of modern men in our geographical space around 80.000
48:38years, which would not be impossible since the lines move for a few years, why not?
48:45The only thing that could allow us to trach it would be the discovery of material osseux,
48:52so of the os, so of the Adam, who, by characterisation of the proteins, would tell us of
48:58which humans it would be for its intermediate levels.
49:02Finally, there is a third hypothesis.
49:05It could be another human being, which is not yet known in our geographical space.
49:11So, affair to follow.
49:13Eh bien, we are not out of the sand!
49:17We arrived at almost 3.000 traces and empreintes, which is very exceptional.
49:22It is the only site currently known to have livred autant of human empreintes.
49:27We have made instantaneously of the everyday life, which is rare, of course, for these periods.
49:34We had two small small empreintes.
49:39So, an infant who only starts walking, an infant of small dimensions, côte-à -côte,
49:44with just behind two smaller empreintes, corresponding to a young woman.
49:50There, we see immediately the gesture that consists of accompanying an infant who starts to do his first steps.
49:56But there, we really touch the human group, and of course, in this context, the sentiment,
50:09something that is not palpable ailleurs.
50:11It is, in one part, very emotional, and in the other part,
50:16these are rare moments, I would say even rare, in the career of an impostor.
50:21Today, the ongoing research is brushing aside the prejudices.
50:36Neanderthal is probably not less intelligent than sapiens.
50:39He is different, but he is no less human.
50:44The representations of an evolution that seems to lead inevitably to Homo sapiens,
50:49leaving behind the Neanderthal and the other humanities,
50:52as the necessary drafts of this long triumphal march turn out to be false today.
50:57A certainty crumbles, that of thinking of us, the sapiens, as the ultimate outcome of evolution,
51:10the ultimate in adaption.
51:15Perhaps the disappearance of the Neanderthals should encourage Homo sapiens to be more humble,
51:30and to reflect on its own disappearance?
51:34THIRDAL END
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