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| 2635 Images from Tautavel |
Posted on 23.06.2016, 19.08.2016
Located in the Southern France, in the valley of Verdouble, at 26km from Perpignan, Tautavel is a commune which appeared for the first time in a document written in 1011. Heritage of Tautavel is very rich, the main landmarks being Arago Cave and museum of prehistory, but also the church of Saint-Genis and his furniture, the chapel of Saintes-Puelles, the remains of the castle, the Torre del far and Visigoth sarcophagi. It is also home to The European Centre for Prehistoric Research (CERP).
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| 2636 Arago Cave |
The commune is famous due to the Tautavel Man (Homo erectus tautavelensis), a proposed subspecies of the hominid Homo erectus, the 450,000-year-old fossil remains of whom were discovered in the Arago Cave. Excavations began in 1964, with the first notable discovery occurring in 1969. Occupied from 600,000 to 400,000 B.P., the cave is of the earliest known from the middle Pleistocene to archaeology of the Pyrenees.
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| 2690 Homo erectus tautavelensis (Arago XLIV) |
The skeletal remains of two individual hominids have been found in the cave: a female older than 40 (Arago II), and a male aged no more than 20 (Arago XXI and Arago XLVII). Recovered stone tools originate from within a 5km radius of the cave, while animal bones suggest the inhabitants could travel up to 33km for food. No signs of fire, ash, charcoal, burned stone, or clay is documented in the cave which seems to suggest the art of fire is a recent discovery.
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