Existing comment:
The Cro-Magnon Man:
(Homo sapiens)
One of the most famous discoveries of fossil humans was made at the Cro-Magnon Rockshelter, at Les Eyzies in the Dordogne region of France. The name Cro-Magnon has two possible origins. Cro or croze means "cave" or "rockshelter" in the local dialect. "Magnon" may have come from the name of a hermit named Magnou who once lived there. An alternative origin may be the Latin word magnum meaning "big".
In 1868, railroad workers found five skeletons buried at the back of the rockshelter. One of the skeletons, called the Old Man of Cro-Magnon, was in his late forties, and suffered a severe fungal infection in his bones. Stone tools, seashells, carved antlers, ivory pendants, and bones of mammoths, lions, and reindeer were in the same layer as the bones. Shells and animal teeth had perforations for stringing. The skeletons were anatomically modern, but the geological layers and the animal bones gave evidence of great age (approximately 25,000 years old). A controversy arose because many scientists and the public were not ready for the concept of humans living at the same time as prehistoric animals. |