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The Roc de
Combe-Capelle is a rather large rockshelter just at the foot of the limestone cliff face
at the top of the slope. It was originally excavated in 1907 by Villeréal, then by
the Abbé Chastaing. However, it was the excavations of Otto Hauser that brought the most
attention to the site when in 1909 he recovered the almost complete skeleton of a modern
Homo
sapiens in what he thought was a level containing a Chatelperronian industry.
Unfortunately, the excavation techniques employed by Hauser at the time were not very
rigorous and there has been much debate as to the exact provenience of this find; this
debate will probably never be resolved because there are virtually no deposits left at
this locale. The stratigraphic succession appears to have included Chatelperronian,
Aurignacian, Gravettian, and Solutrean, but it has been published in many different
versions. There is even the possibility, as suggested by Hauser, that there was a
Mousterian industry at the base. Given the current debate concerning the issue of
continuity of the aboriginal Neandertals or their replacement by moderns associated with
the Aurignacian in Europe, this lack of clear archaeological association, indeed, is
unfortunate. To make matters even worse, however, most of the skeleton itself is believed
to have been destroyed during World War II.
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| Otto Hauser and the modern Homo sapiens
skeleton found by him. |
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