Photo of inside the cavern system
In 1927, a piece of human jawbone with teeth was found that dated between 44,200 - 41,500 years old. It was identified as being Homo sapiens sapiens, anatomically modern human, and not Neanderthal despite Neanderthals existing at the same time on the European continent. But there's a little back story about dating the maxilla (upper jaw). It was dated in Oxford in 1989 as younger - 31,000 years old - but because the jawbone had traces of glue on it that held it together, they weren't sure whether they had an accurate date for the jawbone. So, a recent study by Prof. Thomas Higham (Oxford) and Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in 2011 has confirmed the jawbone isn't Neanderthal. How do you do that? By creating a 3D model of the jawbone, of course, and distinguishing AMH characteristics against Neanderthal ones. It was further dated by radiocarbon dating animal bone in the immediate layers around where the jawbone was found. Using Bayesian statistic modelling (which I find just a bit bamboozling) they narrowed the dates to 44,500 - 41,500 years old.
The implications for modern humans at the time so far north in Europe are incredible. Firstly, it confirms that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans co-existed in time, but secondly that spatially AMH dispersed perhaps different than we previously assumed.
Quoting Professor Higham (you can see his profile here: http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/TH1.html):
"We believe this piece of jawbone is the earliest direct evidence we have of modern humans in northwestern Europe, at a site at the very outermost limits of the initial dispersal of our species. It confirms the presence of modern humans at the time of the earliest Aurignacian culture, and tells us a great deal about how rapidly our species dispersed across Europe during the last Ice Age."Which is pretty wicked in the Upper Paleolithic world.
So off we went today on a cave tour, led by the lovely Alan and his Mag-lite, who explained the history of the archaeological digs in the 19th and 20th century. Willian Pengelly led the excavations pre-1900, and his team found flint tools and animal bones, including hyena and woolly mammoth remains. Alan showed examples of one of each tooth, or 'tuth', as Alan says. Pengelly was good in that he brought order to the archaeological excavation techniques, excavating by a set area and depth. Unfortunately, Pengelly destroyed a chunk of the material debris in the cave by blowing it up. Woops.
We also saw some pretty cool stalagmites, stalactites, pillars and flowstone which looked like it came straight from Alien. Alan also decided to ask me if I knew what creature Diego was in Ice Age, and then put a saber tooth next to my face and said to everyone that it suited me. Alan, you charmer. But here is evidence of Smilodontini (small Smilodons) found in the caves, as well as bears (vegetarian and carnivorous) and other species. It's just their speculation, but it may've been one of these creatures that killed the poor person whose jawbone was found.
Some of the animal species remains found at the Kent Caverns
All in all, a great geeky day out - I even bought a Cavog the Caveman pencil.
You can read more about the jawbone in this Nature article here: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/who_ere_europes_first_humans.html
And on the Kents Cavern website here:
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