Neanderthals stop in Clichy

Panoramic aerial view of the excavation at Clichy-la-Garenne • INRAP/SERVICE DE PRESSE

Neanderthal man lived in the Paris region and walked the banks of the Seine during the Middle Paleolithic (between 350,000 and 45,000 years ago). For the first time since the end of the 19 ^th century, an excavation confirms the discoveries made in the quarries of Clichy-Levallois during the major Haussmann works. In the middle of the buildings, in the town of Clichy-la-Garenne, in a loop of the Seine, tools made by men at that time were indeed found. They were cut in stone in a precise and elaborate way:in a piece (core) of local flint, sharp shards were cut in a predetermined way according to the size and shape of the desired tool. This specific technique, called the “Levallois method”, is internationally recognized and is associated with the presence of Neanderthals on the banks of the river at that time.

Flints carved on site

The site has delivered 21 pieces of flint in good condition, which the researchers hope to talk about. According to them, it was not a workshop for making tools; the stones were cut on the spot for the immediate needs of the men who stopped there. They mastered the technique very well and did not need to bother carrying their tools from place to place. Beneath more than 4 m of contemporary embankments, the old alluvial deposits of the Seine have also yielded animal fossils, bison and horse bones, and a tusk belonging to an elephant, woolly mammoth or ancient elephant.

It was as part of the redevelopment of Greater Paris that the prehistorians of Inrap (National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research) made these discoveries. This site had been known since the years 1860-1870, as it was used for the construction of buildings in Haussmannian Paris. But in such an urbanized region, when buildings have covered the ground, archaeologists rarely have the opportunity to intervene. Unfortunately, they still haven't found any Neanderthal bones.