Magdalenian Girl is the common name for a skeleton of an early modern human dating from 13,000 to 11,000 BCE, in the Magdalenian period. The remains were discovered in 1911 in southwestern France in the Cap Blanc rock shelter.
When Magdalenian Girl was acquired in 1926 for the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois by Henry Field, then curator of Physical Anthropology, it was hailed as one of the most significant acquisitions the museum ever made. On the first day the precious specimen was exhibited, tens of thousands of visitors flocked to the museum to see it.
It is the most complete Upper Paleolithic skeleton in North America. For years, the individual was thought to be a young girl, because her wisdom teeth had not yet advanced, but new analysis indicates that her wisdom teeth were impacted, and that she was actually 25 to 35 years old when she died. This is the oldest recorded case of impacted wisdom teeth.
Famous quotes containing the word girl:
“There are two kinds of fathers in traditional households: the fathers of sons and the fathers of daughters. These two kinds of fathers sometimes co-exist in one and the same man. For instance, Daughter’s Father kisses his little girl goodnight, strokes her hair, hugs her warmly, then goes into the next room where he becomes Son’s Father, who says in a hearty voice, perhaps with a light punch on the boy’s shoulder: “Goodnight, Son, see ya in the morning.””
—Letty Cottin Pogrebin (20th century)