UMR 5199 PACEA, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Populations du Passé, Université Bordeaux 1, avenue des Facultés, 33405 Talence, France.
J Hum Evol. 2010 Dec;59(6):641-56. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.07.022. Epub 2010 Oct 8.
Spy cave (Jemeppe-sur-Sambre, Belgium) is reputed for the two adult Neandertal individuals discovered in situ in 1886. Recent reassessment of the Spy collections has allowed direct radiocarbon dating of these individuals. The sorting of all of the faunal collections has also led to the discovery of the remains of a Neandertal child, Spy VI. This individual is represented by two mandibular corpus fragments. The left fragment is the most complete and both sides preserve the mental foramen. Four deciduous teeth are associated with these mandibular remains: three incisors and one canine. The lower left canine (Spy 645a) conjoins with the corresponding alveolar socket in the left part of the mandible. Following extant standards, the developmental stage of the preserved teeth indicate an age at death of about one and a half years. In addition to performing a classical morphometric comparative study of the mandible and teeth, we have evaluated the dental tissue proportions using high-resolution microtomographic techniques. Our results show that Spy VI generally falls within the Neandertal range of variation. However, this specimen also exhibits particular traits, notably in the dental internal structural organization, which reveals that variation in the immature Neandertal variation is larger than what was variation currently represented by the available fossil record. These observations demonstrate the need for investigating the frequency and expression of immature Neandertal traits in fossil anterior teeth, as well as their temporal and geographic variation. Direct radiocarbon dating of the Spy VI specimen has been conducted in two different laboratories. The results of Spy VI confirm the age previously determined for the two adults, making the Spy Neandertal remains the youngest ever directly dated in northwest Europe.
间谍洞（比利时萨布勒-若姆）以 1886 年在原地发现的两名成年尼安德特人而闻名。最近对间谍洞藏品的重新评估允许对这两个人进行直接的放射性碳测年。对所有动物群藏品的分类也导致了发现了一个尼安德特儿童的遗骸，即间谍洞 6 号（Spy VI）。这个个体由两个下颌骨体碎片组成。左边的碎片是最完整的，两侧都保留了颏孔。四颗乳牙与这些下颌骨遗骸有关：三颗门齿和一颗犬齿。左下侧犬齿（Spy 645a）与下颌骨左部的相应牙槽结合。根据现有的标准，保存牙齿的发育阶段表明死亡时的年龄约为一岁半。除了对下颌骨和牙齿进行经典的形态比较研究外，我们还使用高分辨率微断层扫描技术评估了牙组织的比例。我们的结果表明，Spy VI 通常属于尼安德特人的变异范围。然而，这个标本也表现出一些特殊的特征，特别是在牙齿内部结构组织中，这表明不成熟的尼安德特变异的变异性比目前由可用化石记录代表的变异性更大。这些观察结果表明，需要研究化石前牙中不成熟的尼安德特特征的频率和表达，以及它们的时间和地理变化。对 Spy VI 标本进行了两次不同实验室的直接放射性碳测年。Spy VI 的结果证实了以前为这两个成年人确定的年龄，使 Spy 尼安德特遗骸成为西北欧有史以来直接测定的最年轻的遗骸。
