Combe Grenal

About

Combe Grenal, also known as Combe-Grenal, is an archological site consisting of a collapsed cellar and a slope deposit near Domme, Dordogne in Dordogne, France. It dates back to c. 130,000 to 50,000 Before Present (BP).

First described by François Jouannet in 1812, it was again briefly described by Édouard Lartet and Henry Christy in "Cavernes du Perigord" published in Revue archéologique in 1864. In the 1930s, D. and E.

Peyrony did excavations, but the cellar was first carefully excavated by François Bordes from 1953 to 1965. The site's stratigraphic sequence is 13 meters in depth and has 64 layers (65 layers in some sources). 55 layers are Mousterian while the 9 layers near the bottom are Acheulean.

The oldest layers date back to the end of the Riss glaciation and the younger to the Würm glaciation. The oldest Neanderthal remains were found in layer 60. There were also some found in levels 39 and 35.

Most remotes are found in level 25, which includes 24 cranial and post-cranial species estimated to date to about 75,000–65,000 years BP. In 2009, part of an incisor belonging to a child about three years old (estimate 2–4 years) (Combe-Grenal Hominid 31) was discovered in layer 60...