Skull from Combe Capelle

On the slope of Combe Capelle in the Couze valley, Otto Hauser and Klaatsch found the skeleton of an early Homo sapiens. This was one of the relatively rare crouched burials of a Mesolithic human in Europe. The body of a man approximately forty-five years old was buried together with flint and bone tools and pieces of meat (animal bones). Of particular interest are the pierced land and sea snail shells found around his head, clearly once part of a headdress.