Select a region
One of Jersey's key Palaeolithic sites is to be broadcast nationwide at the end of this year as part of a new documentary fronted by David Attenborough exploring neanderthal discoveries.
In trying to understand a recent UK discovery of wooly mammoth bones, the team involved in the upcoming 'Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard' visit one of the most significant Neanderthal archaeology sites in the world - La Cotte De St. Brelade.
The granite headland on Jersey's west coast has provided extraordinary prehistorical archaeological discoveries over the past century, stretching back to 1881, when stone tools were found on the site, including Neanderthal teeth and bone.
Pictured: Records taken from La Cotte show people coming and going from La Cotte from around 250,000 - 40,000 years ago, according to Dr Pope. (Jersey Heritage)
The Attenborough documentary - due to be broadcast on BBC One on 30 December at 20:00 - visits the site for a segment to provide wider context to its main subject matter and give an insight into Neanderthal history.
One of the contributors to the documentary, and the key contemporary archaeologist to work on La Cotte De St. Brelade, is UCL's Dr Matt Pope, who is part of Le Manche Prehistoric Research Group.
Le Manche work in collaboration with GeoMarine, who are making sure the site is preserved, and Jersey Heritage, which has executive control over the site and leases it from Société Jersiaise.
While the overall Attenborough documentary is not about Jersey Neanderthals, Dr Pope explained how the "BBC Team went to visit other experts and other sites as part of this documentary build up a wider picture, and of course in doing that they came to La Cotte and they came to the Jersey Heritage Collection, because of course if you want to tell a Neanderthal story, you come to La Cotte De St. Brelade."
Pictured: The documentary will be broadcast at 20:00 on BBC One on 30 December.
Describing the site as one of the "most important sites of Neanderthal archaeology in the world" and "without a doubt the key site in North West Europe for understanding Neanderthal evolution and behaviour", Dr Pope told Express about what some of what his 10 years of work on the site, as well as the century of research preceding it, has led to.
"So the important thing about La Cotte is it is a very long series of geological layers preserved within a collapsed cave system that represents the coming and going of Neanderthal populations," he said.
"We get to see them where they live, how they’re hunting in the landscape, we get to see what kind of climate they can survive in and what kind of climates they’re abandoning the sties and being pushed out.
"So what we have is a very long term record, sites like that are very very rare and in Northern Europe they’re even rarer."
Pictured: The documentary will follow a number of previous filmmakers who have visited the site to understand more about Neanderthals.
Giving an example of how significant some of these finds are, he noted that the team now believe they could have evidence of one of the last Neanderthal populations in Northern Europe.
"...The teeth that were discovered in 1910 from these levels are not classic neanderthal in their morphology, in their shape, they have features like modern humans - so now La Cotte St. Brelade has one of the best candidate populations for people who shared modern human and neanderthal ancestry," he said.
"Jersey could have been one of the places where these two great populations were mixing just before the Neanderthals go extinct."
In terms of wooly mammoths too, which is what the Attenborough documentary concerns, Dr Pope described how discoveries around the creatures gave an indication to wider Neanderthal activity.
"So for the most part what we’re getting are layers that are full of burnt bone and small amounts of burnt wood - we’re in a cold climate so there isn’t much trees around so they’re burning bone - and it shows that they were actually living there, they’re making La Cotte De St. Brelade their home, and they’re using it go out and hut in the wider landscape.
"One of the things that’s really exciting about the La Cotte archaeology is the presence of at least two heaps of mammoth and wooly rhinoceros bone, and these are constructed heaps of discarded skulls, ribs and shoulder blades and wooly mammoths.
"This shows that they’re regularly getting out there and hunting and bringing elements for food, for getting fat out, and also maybe for using as fuel maybe to burn.
"So these bone heaps are really unusual but really gives an indication that these population of neanderthal knows exactly how to hunt in that landscape and they’re securing regular large kill."
Video: Heritage explores the site and its history.
Right now though, the process of excavating the site is just as much about the future as it is the past, with Dr Pope saying how "the priority that our generation, our team, and Jersey Heritage are facing at the moment is protecting the site for the future.
"It sits on an exposed granite headland, it’s been under erosion by the sea, Jersey Heritage have invested a lot in protecting and engineering the site, building a wall to keep the sea out and our excavations are not just driven now by research.
"We will make new discoveries, we will bring that site under more understanding, but everything that we now excavate is about stabilising it, turning cliffs into slopes and understanding what has been lost in the past and what needs to be protected in the future."
Describing the process of being involved in the documentary overall and having the headland exposed to a wider audience, he added that the team have been quite regularly involved in documentaries, working with production houses from France to Canada looking to explore Neanderthal history.
"...In this case, we were working with an amazing professional documentary making team - Ben Garrett is an expert presenter and of course asking lots of insightful question," he said, adding that it was a "really positive experience" overall.
On film crews coming to the site in the future, he added: "These are documentaries that are going to be seen by domestic audiences, then they're going to be syndicated and telling the story to the whole world, and I think it's really exciting that in telling the global story they're regularly coming back to La Cotte, visiting our excavations, visiting the Jersey Heritage collection."
Jersey Heritage CEO Jon Carter said: "Our work at La Cotte over the last ten years has paid huge dividends in terms of international media coverage of this special part of the story of Jersey.
"It shows what an important ambassador heritage can be if we give it the care it deserves and work closely with the right international academic partners. As we continue the project I am sure there will be more stories to come from this amazing site and collection."
Comments
Comments on this story express the views of the commentator only, not Bailiwick Publishing. We are unable to guarantee the accuracy of any of those comments.