A 4-year-old Gravettian child buried approximately 24,500 years ago was found at Abrigo do Lagar Velha in Portugal's Lapedo Valley, displaying features that sparked debate about potential Neanderthal ancestry. The discovery was made in 1998. The child was buried with pierced shells and red ocher, and the skeleton was found in a rock shelter at the base of a limestone cliff. The child was buried with pierced shells and red ochre, and the skeleton was found on its back with head to the east and left side against the cliff wall.
Lapedo Child hybrid fossil found at Abrigo do Lagar Velha
Site mentioned
📍 Abrigo do Lagar Velha
Key facts
- A 4-year-old Gravettian male child with Neanderthal features was found buried at Abrigo do Lagar Velha
- The child was buried carefully wrapped in cloth and surrounded by gifts
- The site is located in horizontal fissures along the base of a limestone cliff in the Lapedo Valley near Lagos, Portugal
- The skeleton was found on its back with head to the east and left side against the cliff
- The skeleton and sediment were heavily stained with red ocher
- Vertically oriented animal bones and stones surrounded the burial
- The morphological mosaic indicates admixture between Gravettian modern humans and Neanderthals
- Dating to 28,000-30,000 years BP places this in the Upper Paleolithic period in southern Iberia
Sources
The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo ... - PNASpnas.org
The remains, the largely complete skeleton of a ≈4-year-old child buried with pierced shell and red ochre, is dated to ca. 24,500 years B.P. The cranium, ...
The Lapedo Child: A 28,000-Year-Old Mystery Reshaped by Scienceanthropology.net
When the "Lapedo Child" was unearthed in 1998 in the Lagar Velho Valley, it upended long-held assumptions about Neanderthal extinction and human ...
Lagar Velho - the Hybrid Child from Portugal - Don's Mapsdonsmaps.com
The remains, the largely complete skeleton of an approximately 4 year old child buried with pierced shells and red ochre, is dated to ca. 24 500 years B.P. The ...
[PDF] The Human Burial of the Abrigo Lagar Velho Child - Antropologi.infoantropologi.info
The most significant remains that have been found at this site are the skeletal remains of what the archeologists believe to be a four-year-old boy, lying on a ...
New radiocarbon dating reveals Lapedo Child's age and ...archaeologymag.com
The remains belong to a four- to five-year-old child and were found in a burial site that initially hinted at a ritualistic context. The ...
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