2023-11-12 13:17:28
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The analysis of nearly 130 individuals dating back 7,000 years allowed scientists to reconstruct two vast family trees. The oldest in history. “Libé” spent a day in a bone library with the authors of the study.
“Stéphane, where are the teeth?” Maïté Rivollat has not lost her dentures — she still wears a straight and immaculate smile. What she is looking for are her objects of study. No clipboard on an anthropologist’s desk: bones and two walkie-talkies weigh heavily on the documents. “They are there, on my desk, I think,” replies his former thesis jury, raising a doubtful eyebrow in his laboratory, on the campus of the University of Bordeaux. Dozens of small plastic bags containing bone fragments and a few teeth are piled up not far from archaeological dig reports and research papers. Here, we study old bones to better understand the past. How did people live 7,000 years ago? How were their houses built? What was their social organization? What did they eat? And how did the social inequalities that began to appear during this period materialize?
The few crates in Stéphane Rottier’s office are nothing compared to what is housed in a hangar just 3 kilometers from the university, on the edge of the railway in the city of Pes
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#Gurgy #cemetery #reveals #genetic #history #Neolithic #generations #Libération