Loschbour man explained

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Loschbour Man
Death Date: 6000 BC (aged 34-47)
Death Place:now Waldbillig, Echternach, Luxemburg
Body Discovered:7 October 1935 by Nicolas Thill
Resting Place:Luxembourg City, Canton of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

The Loschbour man (also Loschbur man) is a specimen of Homo sapiens from the European Mesolithic discovered in 1935 in Mullerthal, in the commune of Waldbillig, Luxembourg.

History

The remains of the Loschbour man, nearly complete, were discovered on 7 October 1935 under a rock shelter in Mullerthal on the banks of the Black Ernz river. It was found by amateur archeologist and school teacher Nicolas Thill.[1] It is now at the National Museum of Natural History in Luxembourg City.[2]

Life

Loschbour man was a hunter-gatherer, and the flint tools used for stalking and killing prey (wild boar and deer) were found by his body. He was found to have been one of the late Western Hunter-Gatherers, soon to be supplanted by more numerous groups of Early European Farmers from Anatolia and Southwestern Europe.[3] According to DNA tests reported in 2014, the Loschbour man was male,[4] and described as having an "intermediate" to light skin tone (90%), brown or black hair (98%), and likely blue eyes (56%).[5] In contrast to 90% of modern Europeans, he was lactose-intolerant. When he died, he was between 34 and 47 years old, c. 1.6m (05.2feet) tall, and weighed between 58kgand(-)62kgkg (128lband(-)137lbkg).[1]

The cremated remains of another person, likely an adult woman, were found nearby, in a pit which was first excavated in the 1930s and later rediscovered. The bones of the feet were absent, and remains from the thorax underrepresented, and the remaining bones had scrapemarks, evidencing a de-fleshing treatment likely before cremation, including removal of the mandible and scraping of the skull.[6]

Dating and genetics

Loschbour man lived more than 8,000 years ago, making the skeleton the oldest human remains found in Luxembourg.[7] He was found to have carried the Y-DNA haplogroup I2a-M423*.[8] DNA testing on two molars indicated the population to which the Loschbour man belonged (Western Hunter-Gatherers), "contributed ancestry to all Europeans but not to near-Easterners".[9]

Media, science

The results of the 2014 DNA testing allowed the Luxembourg Centre National de Recherche Archéologique and the Musée National d'Histoire et d'Art to make a 3-D reconstruction of the man.[4] L'homme de Loschbour is a 2012 animated movie, seven minutes long, by Nic Herber.[10] "Redonner vie à l’Homme de Loschbour" was a one-day conference at the National Museum of Natural History, which presented an overview of the results of recent investigations.[11]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Le "premier Luxembourgeois" a livré plus de secrets que prévu: Le nouveau visage de l'homme de Loschbour. Luxemburger Wort. 28 November 2018. 17 September 2014. fr. Sophie. Kieffer.
  2. Web site: L'Homme du Loschbour, le plus ancien Luxembourgeois, à la base d'un succès scientifique. 28 November 2018. 20 October 2014. fr. Monarchy of Luxembourg. https://web.archive.org/web/20181129054451/http://luxembourg.public.lu/fr/actualites/2014/09/18-loschbour/index.html. 29 November 2018. dead.
  3. Book: Rutherford, Adam. 72–74. A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Human Story Retold Through Our Genes. Adam Rutherford. The Experiment. 2018. 9781615194940.
  4. News: L'homme de Loschbour était définitivement un homme!. 28 November 2018. 17 September 2014. fr. RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg. https://web.archive.org/web/20181129142050/http://5minutes.rtl.lu/grande-region/luxembourg/693941.html%26sa%3DU%26ved%3D0ahUKEwii2quv9a3KAhUL2hoKHYKKA9IQpwIIIDAE%26usg%3DAFQjCNGBxMauYN5USOCFRXpBN5xI9MF2dQ/567815.html. 29 November 2018. dead.
  5. https://static-content.springer.com/esm/art%3A10.1038%2Fs41559-019-0871-9/MediaObjects/41559_2019_871_MOESM1_ESM.pdf
  6. Book: Jones, Amy Gray. https://books.google.com/books?id=21-1DgAAQBAJ&pg=PT56. Cremation and the Archaeology of Death. Oxford University Press. 9780192519092. Jessica. Cerezo-Román. Anna. Wessman. Howard. Williams. Cremation and the Use of Fire in Mesolithic Mortuary Practices in North-West Europe. 14 April 2017 .
  7. Web site: L'Homme de Loschbour dans Nature. 17 September 2014 . National Museum of Natural History (Luxembourg). 28 November 2018. fr.
  8. Web site: I-M423* . 2012 . YFull . Vadim Urasin .
  9. Nature. Lazaridis. Iosif. etal. 17 September 2014. Ancient human genomes suggest three ancestral populations for present-day Europeans. 10.1038/nature13673. 513. 7518 . 409–413. 25230663 . 4170574 . 1312.6639 . 2014Natur.513..409L . 11336/30563. free.
  10. News: L'Homme de Loschbour bei Festival nominéiert. 28 November 2018. 3 May 2012. RTL Télé Lëtzebuerg. fr. https://web.archive.org/web/20181129100426/http://5minutes.rtl.lu/letzebuerg/lokal/gemeng/rosport/news/93167.html. 29 November 2018. dead.
  11. Web site: Conférence: Redonner vie à l'Homme de Loschbour (29/1/2015). National Museum of Natural History (Luxembourg). 28 November 2018. January 2015. fr.

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