The Lapedo Child Re-Dated: A New Look at Early Human History in Europe
A groundbreaking radiocarbon dating technique has provided a more precise timeline for the life of the Lapedo Child, a famous skeleton exhibiting a mix of human and Neanderthal features. This breakthrough promises to reshape our understanding of early modern human occupation and migration across Europe and potentially beyond.
The Lapedo Child, named after the Lapedo Valley in Portugal where the remains were discovered in 1998, represents a significant find in the study of human evolution. Students stumbled upon the rock shelter containing the child’s remains, and subsequent excavations revealed a nearly intact, ochre-stained skeleton. Along with the bones, archaeologists unearthed animal remains, charcoal fragments, and beads crafted from marine shells.
Despite the recovery of a substantial portion of the child’s skeletal structure, the remains were found in a relatively degraded state. This poor condition hampered previous attempts to accurately determine the child’s age, leaving researchers with an incomplete picture of its place in history.
The Lapedo Child belonged to the Gravettian culture, a civilization that thrived across Europe between 32,000 and 24,000 years ago. The Gravettian people are renowned for their artistic expressions, most notably the voluptuous Venus figurines. However, despite the widespread presence of the Gravettian culture for thousands of years, a genetic analysis conducted in 2023 revealed that Gravettian groups across the continent were not closely related to each other.
Determining the precise age of the Lapedo Child holds significant implications. Firstly, it would allow researchers to pinpoint the exact period when the population to which the child belonged inhabited the Portuguese coast. Secondly, the successful application of the new dating method to the Lapedo Child would validate its efficacy, paving the way for its use on other Gravettian and Cro-Magnon populations across Europe. This, in turn, would generate a more comprehensive timetable of early modern human occupation and migration across the continent.
Bethan Linscott, a researcher at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford and the lead author of the study, explained the challenges in obtaining reliable dates for the Lapedo Child in the past. "The fact that only a small amount of collagen (the organic part of the bone) could be extracted from the child’s bones, combined with the fact that the contamination couldn’t be fully removed meant that the original dates were not reliable," she stated.
Scientists had made four previous attempts to establish a reliable radiocarbon date for the Lapedo Child, but all were unsuccessful in providing a definitive timeframe. However, the latest research team believes they have finally cracked the code by employing a novel dating method that minimizes the impact of contaminants in the sample and specifically targets certain amino acids to determine the sample’s age.
"We were able to obtain a reliable direct date for the skeleton using a relatively new technique called compound-specific radiocarbon dating," Linscott explained. "Normally, collagen is extracted from bone and dated in bulk, but this method involves extracting a specific amino acid from the bone collagen—called hydroxyproline—and dating that instead. Hydroxyproline is rare elsewhere in nature and essentially acts a bit like a collagen ‘fingerprint’, so by dating hydroxyproline, we can be sure that the carbon we’re dating is coming directly from the bone and not from contamination."
The Lapedo Child’s story is also one of survival against the odds. The research team discovered that the site where the remains were found had been terraced by the landowner to build a shed several years prior to the discovery. This destructive act resulted in the loss of approximately 10 feet (3 meters) of archaeological material. However, remarkably, the child’s burial site remained untouched.
The team’s analysis of the child’s right radius (one of two large bones in the forearm) revealed a new age estimate for the individual’s 4-or-5-year-long life: between 27,780 and 28,850 years ago.
"The new date for the child is consistent with original estimates for the age of the burial, but it has changed our interpretation of the burial events themselves," Linscott noted.
Previously, the charcoal found beneath the child was thought to be from a ritually burned twig used in the Lapedo Child’s grave. However, the new dating reveals that the charcoal predates the child’s burial. Similarly, red deer pelves found in the grave, which were interpreted as meat offerings, are also older than the child.
While the pelves may still have been intentionally placed there as part of the burial ritual, perhaps as a form of support, the dates of rabbit vertebra found at the site indicate that the animal was placed ritually, possibly as a symbolic offering for the grave.
The application of hydroxyproline dating has the potential to recalibrate the timing of human presence across Europe and even beyond with unprecedented precision. The method has already been employed in the study of Neanderthal groups. For instance, Neanderthal remains discovered in Croatia’s Vindija Cave were initially believed to date back to approximately 29,000 years ago, well after the widely accepted estimate for the extinction of Neanderthals around 40,000 years ago.
However, in 2017, a group of scientists utilized hydroxyproline dating to demonstrate that the Vindija remains were indeed older than 40,000 years. This finding confirmed the existing consensus regarding the Neanderthal timeline and dispelled any notions that the Croatian find represented a later survival of the species.
This innovative approach holds the promise of further refining scientists’ understanding of the movements and occupations of early modern humans and Neanderthals across the continent. It may also contribute to refining estimates of ancient human relatives worldwide in the future, offering a deeper and more accurate picture of our shared past. The Lapedo Child, thanks to this new dating method, continues to offer insights into the complex tapestry of human evolution and migration.
