Why does the Engis Neanderthal child have goat DNA?
In 1829, a doctor trained at the University of Liège excavated ancient deposits trapped in caves in the Liège province. He discovered fossils of animals now extinct and typical of the Ice Ages preceding our era: dozens of woolly rhinoceroses, cave lions, cave hyenas, deer, etc. But above all, he unearthed a round object, about 20 cm in diameter.
But above all, it reveals a round object, about 20 cm in diameter. It's the apparently complete skull of a human child! But the fossil disintegrates in his hands, into dozens of pieces. Philippe-Charles Schmerling (for that's who he is) salvages what he can, and will then attempt to repair this exceptional fossil.
He drew a conclusion that was unthinkable at the time, but nonetheless correct: human beings are ancient, older than previously thought, and they once lived with these animals!
But neither Schmerling nor his contemporaries were ready in 1829 to accept the existence of other species of human beings, and it wasn't until the discovery of the famous Neander Valley fossils in 1857 that this fact became obvious. If scientists of the time had understood the importance of Schmerling's discovery, Neanderthals would be called Engissians today!
Schmerling therefore attempted to repair the fossil skull. But in those days, glues made from fish or goat remains were frequently used. For a long time, this posed a problem, not only in terms of extracting the ancestral DNA, but also in terms of accurately dating the fossil remains repaired by this process.
In 2021, British, French and Belgian researchers - notably from the University of Liège - are using a new dating method that isolates the human collagen preserved in fossils. The results obtained make it possible to greatly postpone the time of the extinction of the neanderthals in Europe, to 40-44,000 years before the present.
The skull of the Engis child was classified as a Trésor de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles in 2012. It attracts a large number of researchers from all over the world to ULiège'sEDDyLab, Evolution & Diversity Dynamics Lab .
As for Philippe-Charles Schmerling, it is only after his death that he will be recognized as one of the founders of paleoanthropology: the study of fossil humans and their more distant cousins.
3D model of the maxilla of the Engis child
Find out more about the skull of the Engis child
Find out more about research in 2021
Photo ©Jean-Michel Bourdoux
