Baby Neanderthal skeleton rediscovered

Newborn's remains were lost to science for nearly a century

TALENCE, France (CNN) -- A French researcher has found a skeleton of a Neanderthal baby that was first discovered in 1914 near Le Moustier, in southwestern France, but was lost in a museum for more than 80 years.

Bruno Maureille, of the University of Bordeaux in Talence, said that the skeleton, called Le Moustier 2, is nearly complete. It's missing just its shoulder blades and pubic bone, making it one of the most complete Neanderthal skeletons ever found.

Scientists believe it is the remains of a 4-month-old newborn, who died about 40,000 years ago.

"The rediscovery of Le Moustier 2 is more than an interesting story. It is an exceptional discovery, maybe the most important in France (in) 30 years," said Maureille. "It will have fundamental consequence on our knowledge about Neanderthals and their phylogenetic relationships with modern humans."

Maureille found the remains inside the National Museum of Prehistory in Les Eyzies, France, in 1996. Until that time, paleontologists had thought the skeleton had been sent to a museum in Paris in the early 1920s, and subsequently lost.

Once it was rediscovered six years ago, Maureille was able to reunite the bones, some still embedded in sediment from the dig site, with a thigh bone and arm bone that had been separated from the rest of the remains shortly after their discovery.

Neanderthals are a group of prehumans who roamed across Europe and much of Asia from about 200,000 years ago until they went extinct about 30,000 years ago. A race of hunter-gatherers, the Neanderthals made tools, wore clothes, and lived in caves. They had heavy brows and protruding teeth. Adults stood about five feet tall, and were stocky, with a heavy build.

Most scientists believe Neanderthals are not direct human ancestors, though they coexisted with early modern humans for a time. Some researchers have speculated that modern humans killed them off violently, or possibly wiped them out by disease.

Details about the rediscovery of Le Moustier 2 are published in this week's edition of the journal Nature.