New Evidence Found for Stone Age Children, Thought Lost to Time

The study concludes that the two stone age children, found buried in Lebanon, were Homo sapiens and not Neanderthals.

By Matt Hrodey Apr 6, 2023 10:20 AM



Digging for bones from Homo Sapiens or Neanderthals. (Credit: Microgen/Shutterstock)

Christian Tryon, a professor of anthropology at the University of Connecticut, knew stone tools, but he didn’t know teeth.

He was looking at a photograph of just that, ancient dentition recovered from a decades-old archaeological site in Lebanon. The photograph had come from the papers of a close associate of Rev. J. Franklin Ewing, the original expedition leader.

The Trail to Egbert
At first, Tryon thought the teeth belonged to the remains of an ancient child named “Egbert” by Ewing, bones long considered lost.

Tryon showed the photograph and others to his research partner, Shara Bailey, director of the Center for the Study of Human Origins at New York University. Expert in teeth, she picked up on subtle differences in these, which must have come from two individuals, according to an article in UConn Today.

Tryon and Bailey have tried to piece together whatever evidence they can of the ill-fated excavation, which dug down through 75 feet of sediment at the stone shelter site and uncovered millions of artifacts and fossils.

The site held many things, but a second child?

More:
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/new-evidence-found-for-stone-age-children-thought-lost-to-time