The oldest people in Wales - Neanderthal teeth from Pontnewydd Cave
Pontnewydd Cave
[image: Reconstruction painting showing Early Neanderthal Man. ]
Reconstruction painting showing Early Neanderthal Man.
Excavations at Pontnewydd Cave, Denbighshire have discovered the oldest human remains known from Wales dating back some 230,000 years.
Excavations at the cave by Amgueddfa Cymru between 1978 and 1995 unearthed a total of 19 teeth, discovered found deep inside the cave. These have been identified by experts at the Natural History Museum, London as belonging to an early form of Neanderthal.
Neanderthals in Wales
[image: Upper jaw of a Neanderthal child aged around 8 years old.]
Upper jaw of a child aged around 8 years old.
Neanderthals are one branch of the human evolutionary tree that is thought to have died out approximately 36,000 years ago. Our own species shared a common ancestor with Neanderthals, but did not evolve from them.
Neanderthals were fairly short and stocky, had ridges under their eyebrows, big square jaws, and teeth that are larger than ours are today.
Study of the remains found at Pontnewydd found that these teeth represent the remains of five individuals.
Neanderthal Teeth
[image: Neanderthal Man tooth x-ray]
Early Neanderthal tooth (left), and X-ray (right). The X-ray show the enlarged pulp cavity that has helped archaeologists to identify the Pontnewydd teeth as belonging to Neanderthals.
The teeth have all been x-rayed and they show an interesting characteristic known as taurodontism - an enlarged pulp cavity to the teeth and shorter roots. Taurodontism is a characteristic (although not unique) feature of Neanderthal teeth and it is this that has led experts to decide that these are Neanderthal as opposed to another early human.
The people discovered in Pontnewydd Cave range in age from young children to adults. The most complete discovery from the site is a fragment of an upper jaw of a child aged around eight years old. In the jaw a very heavily worn milk tooth can be seen sitting next to a newly erupted permanent molar. Had this child lived, this new tooth would eventually have pushed out the milk tooth.
Food remains
[image: Pontnewydd Cave, home to Neanderthal Man in Wales]
Pontnewydd Cave was excavated by Amgueddfa Cymru between 1978 and 1995. The wall that can be seen across the entrance to the cave was built during the Second World War, at which time Pontnewydd Cave served as a munitions store.
The teeth were not found on their own inside the cave. Alongside them were stone tools and animal bones, some of which show signs of butchery - evidence that these were the food remains of these early Neanderthals.
Questions remain as to whether these humans were originally buried in graves within the cave. The cave has since been washed through by the melt water from the retreating ice sheets at the end of the last Ice Age. Unfortunately the forces that have remarkably led to the preservation of these teeth deep within Pontnewydd Cave destroyed any traces of their original burial context.
Background Reading
Ice Age hunters: neanderthals and early modern hunters in Wales by S. Green and E. Walker Published by the National Museum of Wales (1991).
In search of the neanderthals: solving the puzzle of human origins by C. Stringer and C. Gamble. Published by Thames and Hudson (1993).
Pontnewydd Cave: a lower Palaeolithic hominid site in Wales: the first report by H. S. Green. Published by the National Museum of Wales (1984).
Article Date: 1 September 2007
5 comments
Amgeuddfa Cymru on 27 September 2011, 12:17
Thank you for your comment, this image was the wrong image showing a completely different time. We have now replaced the image with one appropriate for the time and place. Apologies for any confusion caused.
Marion on 16 September 2011, 14:55
I'm curious about the animal being hunted in the background of the reconstructed Neanderthal painting shown above. It looks more like a mastodon to me then an elephant because of its size and more like a mastodon than a woolly mammoth because it isn't woolly. But I always associated mastodons with North America and when I looked it up, another source http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/mammoths/allaboutmammoths_mastodons.asp) said mastodons in Europe died out a few million years ago. So is that supposed to be an elephant? What fossil remains of hunted animals did they actually find in the Pontnewydd Caves?
Amgueddfa Cymru on 10 February 2010, 10:28 (Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales Staff)
Mike – Thank you for your post. There is Mesolithic evidence from this site, one of the human bones has been dated to the later Mesolithic and one later Mesolithic microlith was found all within the excavations. However, with regard to the Limpet Hammer (otherwise known as Limpet scoops or bevelled pebbles), it is highly unlikely that these were used at this site, as they are normally associated with sites close to rocky coastlines. What you may have found is a natural piece of the local mudstone which has black speckles on it and is often weathered into lenticular shapes.
Mike Morley on 10 February 2010, 09:11
I visited Pontnewydd cave about the year 2000. By chance climbing over a spoil heap outside the cave I found a stone tool which I discribe as a Limpet Hammer. It is heavily worn from use and has a black substance on the tip. This is very like the tools found at the Mesolithic Star Carr site in Yorkshire, which also had a black substance on the tip.
Steve Elchook on 15 December 2008, 10:24
I have found the exact same neanderthal molar as item 8598 230k old. and also a large incisor,both have the enlarged pulp chamber and similar stone tools here in Virginia USA. A local archaeologist has looked at these fossil teeth and confirmed and compared the molar to the one pictured in your museum and agreed they are the same. The fossil teeth I have found here appear to be more fossilized than those in your museum. The established theory in the usa is that the first human arrived here twelve thousand years ago. Archaeologists here in the usa are reluctant to make this find public.
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