RT Journal Article
T1 Dental paleobiology in a juvenile neanderthal (Combe-Grenal, Southwestern France)
A1 Garralda Benajes, María Dolores
A1 Weiner, Steve
A1 Arensburg, Baruch
A1 Maureille, Bruno
A1 Vandermeersch, Bernard
AB Combe-Grenal site (Southwest France) was excavated by F. Bordes between 1953 and 1965. He found several human remains in Mousterian levels 60, 39, 35 and especially 25, corresponding to MIS 4 (~75–70/60 ky BP) and with Quina Mousterian lithics. One of the fossils found in level 25 is Combe-Grenal IV, consisting of a fragment of the left corpus of a juvenile mandible. This fragment displays initial juvenile periodontitis, and the two preserved teeth (LLP4 and LLM1) show moderate attrition and dental calculus. The SEM tartar analysis demonstrates the presence of cocci and filamentous types of bacteria, the former being more prevalent. This result is quite different from those obtained for the two adult Neanderthals Kebara 2 and Subalyuk 1, where more filamentous bacteria appear, especially in the Subalyuk 1 sample from Central Europe. These findings agree with the available biomedical data on periodontitis and tartar development in extant individuals, despite the different environmental conditions and diets documented by numerous archeological, taphonomical and geological data available on Neanderthals and present-day populations. New metagenomic analyses are extending this information, and despite the inherent difficulties, they will open important perspectives in studying this ancient human pathology.
PB MDPI
YR 2022
FD 2022-09
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/124818
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/124818
LA eng
NO Garralda MD, Weiner S, Arensburg B, Maureille B, Vandermeersch B. Dental Paleobiology in a Juvenile Neanderthal (Combe-Grenal, Southwestern France). Biology 2022;11:1352. https://doi.org/10.3390/biology11091352.
NO FundingM. D. Garralda received a Professor Research Grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Research to study the Combe-Grenal Neanderthal series in collaboration with the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie (Bordeaux University, France). B. Maureille works on Quina Neanderthals benefit of funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No 851793). This research also benefited from the scientific framework of the University of Bordeaux’s IdEx “Investments for the Future” program/GPR “Human Past”.
NO European Research Council
NO Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (España)
NO Université de Bordeaux
DS Docta Complutense
RD 19 mar 2026