The Middle Pleistocene hominin mandible from Payre (Ardèche, France)

Although Neandertals are the best-known fossil hominins, the tempo and evolutionary processes in their lineage are strongly debated. This is in part due to the scarcity of the fossil record, in particular before the marine isotopic stage (MIS) 5. In 2010, a partial hominin mandible was discovered at the Middle Paleolithic site of Payre (France) in a layer that is dated to the end of MIS 8/beginning of MIS 7, a time period for which very few...