Early Modern Human
Skull Includes Surprising Neanderthal Feature
ScienceDaily
(Aug. 10, 2007) — In 1942, a human braincase
was found in Romania during phosphate mining. The skull’s geological age has
remained uncertain. Now, new radiocarbon analysis appearing in the August
issue of Current Anthropology directly dates the skull to approximately
33,000 years ago, placing it in the Upper Paleolithic. Though this braincase is in many ways similar to
other known specimens from the period, the fossil also presents a distinctly
Neanderthal feature, ubiquitous among Neanderthals, extremely rare among
archaic humans, and unknown among prior modern humans.
Model of the Neanderthal man. Exhibited in the Dinosaur Park
Münchehagen, Germany. (Credit: iStockphoto/Klaus Nilkens) “The mosaic is most parsimoniously explained as the
result of a modest level of admixture with [Neanderthals] as modern humans
dispersed across Europe,” write Andrei Soficaru (Institutul de Anthropologie,
Romania), Catalin Petrea (Institutul de Speologie, Romania), Adiran Dobos
(Institutl de Arheologie, Romania), and Erik Trinkaus (Washington University,
St. Louis). “Given the reproductive compatibility of many closely related
species and the culturally mediated nature of mate choice in humans, such
admixture should neither be rare nor unexpected.” Known as the Cioclovina 1 neurocranium, the skull is
one of a very small number of European early modern humans securely dated
prior to ca. 28,000 before present. It is unusual in its preservation,
showing little signs of external abrasion and no carnivore damage to the
bone. The person’s age-at-death was probably somewhere in the 40’s, “best
considered mature, but not geriatric,” the authors write. The skull has been described from the outset as that
of an early modern human, due to ear anatomy, details of the neck muscle
attachments, and the presence of a high, rounded braincase. The lateral bones
resemble those of recent human males. However, the area above the neck
muscles contains a distinctly Neanderthal feature, a suprainiac fossa – a
groove above the inion, or, the place on the bone at the lower back of a
human skull that juts out the farthest. “This feature implies some level of Neanderthal
ancestry in this otherwise modern human fossil,” the authors explain. “It
joins other early modern European fossils, from the sites of Oase and Muierii
in Romania, Mlasdec in the Czech Republic, and Les Rois in France in
indicating some degree of Neanderthal admixture occurred when modern humans
spread across Europe starting around 40,000 years ago.” Reference: Andrei Soficaru, Catalin Petrea, Adiran
Dobos, and Erik Trinkaus. “The Human Cranium from the Pestera Cioclovina
Uscata, Romania.” Current Anthropology 48:4. Adapted from materials provided by University of
Chicago Press Journals. Bones From French Cave
Show Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon Hunted Same Prey
ScienceDaily
(Sep. 23, 2003) — A 50,000-year
record of mammals consumed by early humans in southwestern France indicates
there was no major difference in the prey hunted by Neanderthal and
Cro-Magnon, according to a new study. The paper, published in the online Journal of
Archaeological Science, counters the idea proposed by some scientists that
Cro-Magnon, who were physically similar to modern man, supplanted
Neanderthals because they were more skilled hunters as a result of some
evolutionary physical or mental advantage. "This study suggests Cro-Magnon were not
superior in getting food from the landscape," said lead author Donald
Grayson, a University of Washington professor of archaeology. "We could
detect no difference in diet, the animals they were hunting and the way they
were hunting across this period of time, aside from those caused by climate
change. "So the takeover by Cro-Magnon does not seem to
be related to hunting capability. There is no significant difference in large
mammal use from Neanderthals to Cro-Magnon in this part of the world. The
idea that Neanderthals were big, dumb brutes is hard for some people to drop.
Cro-Magnon created the first cave art, but late Neanderthals made body
ornaments, so the depth of cognitive difference between the two just is not
clear." The study also resurrects a nearly 50-year-old
theory first proposed by Finnish paleontologist Björn Kurtén that modern
humans played a role in the extinction of giant cave bears in Europe. Cro-Magnon
may have been the original "apartment hunters" and displaced the
bears by competing with them for the same caves the animals used for winter
den sites. Grayson and his colleague, Francoise Delpech, a
French paleontologist at the Institut de Prehistoire et de Geologie du
Quanternaire at the University of Bordeaux, examined the fossil record left
in Grotte XVI, a cave above the Ceou River, near its confluence with the
Dordogne River. The cave has a rich, dated archaeological sequence that
extends from about 65,000 to about 12,000 years ago, spanning the time when
Neanderthals flourished and died off and when Cro-Magnon moved into the
region. Neanderthals disappeared from southwestern France around 35,000 years
ago, although they survived longer in southern Spain and central Europe. The researchers were most interested in the
transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic, or Middle to Late Stone Age.
Neanderthals occupied Grotte XVI as far back as
65,000 years ago, perhaps longer. Between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago, people
began making stone tools in France, including at Grotte XVI, that were more
like those later fashioned by Cro-Magnon. However, human remains found with
these tools at several sites, were Neanderthal, not Cro-Magnon. Similar tools
but no human remains from this time period were found in Grotte XVI and
people assumed to be Cro-Magnon did not occupy the cave until about 30,000
years ago. The researchers examined more than 7,200 bones and
teeth from large hoofed mammals that had been recovered from the cave. The
animals – ungulates such as reindeer, red deer, roe deer, horses and chamois
were the most common prey – were the mainstay of humans in this part of the
world, according to Grayson. He and Delpech found a remarkable dietary similarity
over time. Throughout the 50,000-year record, each bone and tooth assemblage,
regardless of the time period or the size of the sample involved, contained
eight or nine species of ungulates, indicating that Neanderthals and
Cro-Magnon both hunted a wide variety of game. The only difference the researchers found was in the
relative abundance of species, particularly reindeer, uncovered at the
various levels in Grotte XVI. At the oldest dated level in the cave, reindeer
remains accounted for 26 percent of the total. Red deer were the most common
prey at this time, accounting for nearly 34 percent of the bones and teeth. However,
as summer temperatures began to drop in Southwestern France, the reindeer
numbers increased and became the prey of choice. By around 30,000 years ago,
when Cro-Magnon moved into the region, reindeer accounted for 52 percent of
the bones and teeth. And by around 12,500 years ago, during the last ice age,
reindeer remains accounted for 94 percent of bones and teeth found in Grotte
XVI. Grayson and Delpech also looked at the cut marks
left on bones to analyze how humans were butchering their food. They found
little difference except, surprisingly, at the uppermost level, which
corresponds to the last ice age. "It is possible that because it was so cold,
people were hard up for food," Grayson said. "The bones were very
heavily butchered, which might be a sign of food stress. However, if this had
occurred earlier during Neanderthal times, people would have said this is a
sure sign that Neanderthals did not have the fine hand-eye coordination to do
fine butchering." In examining the Grotte XVI record, the researchers
also found a sharp drop in the number of cave bears from Neanderthal to
Cro-Magnon times. "Cave bears and humans may have been competing
for the same living space and this may have led to their extinction,"
Grayson said. He added that it is not clear if the decline and eventual
extinction of the bears was driven by an increase in the number of humans or
increased human residence times in caves, or both. "If we can understand the extinction of any
animal from the past, such as the cave bear, it gives us a piece of evidence
showing the importance of habitat to animals. The cave bear is one of the
icons of the late Pleistocene Epoch, similar to the saber tooth cats and
mammoths in North America. If further study supports Kurtén's argument, we
finally may be in a position to confirm a human role in the extinction of a large
Pleistocene mammal on a Northern Hemisphere continent." Adapted from materials provided by University Of Washington New Evidence On The
Role Of Climate In Neanderthal Extinction
ScienceDaily
(Sep. 13, 2007) — The mystery of what
killed the Neanderthals has moved a step closer to resolution after an
international study led by the University of
Leeds has ruled out one of the competing theories -- catastrophic climate
change -- as the most likely cause. The bones of more than 400 Neanderthals have been
found since the first discoveries were made in the early 19th century. The
finds suggest the Neanderthals, named after the Neander Valley near
Düsseldorf, where they were first recognized as an extinct kind of archaic
humans, inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia for more than 100,000
years. The causes of their extinction have puzzled
scientists for years -- with some believing it was due to competition with
modern humans, while others blamed deteriorating climatic conditions. But a
new study recently published in Nature has shown that the Neanderthal
extinction did not coincide with any of the extreme climate events that
punctuated the last glacial period. The research was led by Professor Chronis Tzedakis,
a palaeoecologist at the University of Leeds, who explained: "Until now,
there have been three limitations to understanding the role of climate in the
Neanderthal extinction: uncertainty over the exact timing of their
disappearance; uncertainties in converting radiocarbon dates to actual
calendar years; and the chronological imprecision of the ancient climate
record." The team's novel method -- mapping radiocarbon dates
of interest directly onto a well-dated palaeoclimate archive -- circumvented
the last two problems, providing a much more detailed picture of the climate
at the possible times of the Neanderthal disappearance. The researchers applied the new method to three
alternative sets of dates for the timing of the Neanderthal extinction from
Gorham's Cave, Gibraltar, a site which is thought to have been occupied by
some of the latest surviving Neanderthals:
The team showed that during the first two sets of
dates, Europe was experiencing conditions similar to the general climatic
instability of the last glacial period -- conditions the Neanderthals had
already proved able to survive. The much more controversial date of around 24,000
radiocarbon years ago placed the last Neanderthals just before a large
expansion of ice sheets and the onset of cold conditions in northern Europe. "But
at that time, Gibraltar's climate remained relatively unaffected, perhaps as
a result of warm water from the subtropical Atlantic entering the western
Mediterranean," explained palaeoceanographer Isabel Cacho of the
University of Barcelona. "Our findings suggest that there was no single
climatic event that caused the extinction of the Neanderthals,"
concludes palaeonthropologist Katerina Harvati of the Max Planck Institute
for Evolutionary Anthropology. "Only the controversial date of 24,000
radiocarbon years for their disappearance, if proven correct, coincides with
a major environmental shift. Even in this case, however, the role of climate
would have been indirect, by promoting competition with other human
groups." The work also has wider implications for other
studies, as paleoclimatologist Konrad Hughen of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution explained: "Our approach offers the huge potential to
unravel the role of climate in critical events of the recent fossil record as
it can be applied to any radiocarbon date from any deposit." The article Placing late Neanderthals in a climatic
context (Tzedakis, P.C., Hughen, K.A., Cacho, I. & Harvati, K) is
published in Nature on September 13. The study was conducted by Chronis
Tzedakis (University of Leeds); Konrad Hughen (Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution); Isabel Cacho (University of Barcelona); Katerina Harvati (Max
Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology). Adapted from materials provided by University of Leeds. |
