一项研究发现，从法国Grotte du Renne考古遗址发掘出的尼安德特人残骸可能比被认为处于同一时期的有趣的精密人工制品更古老。在Grotte du Renne，通常与具有现代解剖结构的人类有关的装饰品和工具是在与石化的尼安德特人牙齿同样深度的地方发掘出来的，这引发了关于尼安德特人是否制造了这些人工制品或者模仿了正在出现的现代人的行为的争论。
然而，这两种假象情境都假定这些牙齿和工具是同时代的。Thomas F.G. Higham及其同事利用碳测年的新进展检查了Grotte du Renne的6个关键的考古层的骨、鹿角和人工制品，并报告说这些化石的分布方式可能让基于这个遗址的年代顺序的考古学推论变得无效。这组作者说，加速质谱仪测年表明一些化石的年代与发现它们的地质层的年代不符，这导致了很难肯定把尼安德特人与这些精密的人工制品联系起来的理论。这组作者警告说，在尼安德特人行为模型方面，来自Grotte du Renne遗址的证据应该谨慎考虑。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文摘要：
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1007963107
Chronology of the Grotte du Renne (France) and implications for the context of ornaments and human remains within the Chatelperronian
Thomas Highama,1, Roger Jacobib,c,2, Michèle Juliend, Francine Davidd, Laura Basella, Rachel Wooda, William Daviese, and Christopher Bronk Ramseya
There is extensive debate concerning the cognitive and behavioral adaptation of Neanderthals, especially in the period when the earliest anatomically modern humans dispersed into Western Europe, around 35,000–40,000 B.P. The site of the Grotte du Renne (at Arcy-sur-Cure) is of great importance because it provides the most persuasive evidence for behavioral complexity among Neanderthals. A range of ornaments and tools usually associated with modern human industries, such as the Aurignacian, were excavated from three of the Chatelperronian levels at the site, along with Neanderthal fossil remains (mainly teeth). This extremely rare occurrence has been taken to suggest that Neanderthals were the creators of these items. Whether Neanderthals independently achieved this level of behavioral complexity and whether this was culturally transmitted or mimicked via incoming modern humans has been contentious. At the heart of this discussion lies an assumption regarding the integrity of the excavated remains. One means of testing this is by radiocarbon dating; however, until recently, our ability to generate both accurate and precise results for this period has been compromised. A series of 31 accelerator mass spectrometry ultrafiltered dates on bones, antlers, artifacts, and teeth from six key archaeological levels shows an unexpected degree of variation. This suggests that some mixing of material may have occurred, which implies a more complex depositional history at the site and makes it difficult to be confident about the association of artifacts with human remains in the Chatelperronian levels.
