Description
It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans
spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably
displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process.
However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages
persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear
whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by
Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been. New
research, published Dec. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences, is now shedding some light on what were probably the last
Neandertals.
Image Gallery
Erik Trinkaus
Lower jaw of a Palomas fossil.
Click image to view fullsize
Newswise — It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern
humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably
displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process.
However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages
persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear
whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by
Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been.
New research, published Dec. 8 in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences, is now shedding some light on what were probably
the last Neandertals.
The research is based on a study of human fossils found during the
past decade at the Sima de la Palomas, Murcia, Spain by Michael
Walker, professor at Universidad de Murcia, and colleagues, and
published by Michael Walker, Erik Trinkaus, professor of Anthropology
at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues.
The human fossils from the upper levels of the Sima de las Palomas are
anatomically clearly Neandertals, and they are now securely dated to
40,000 years ago. They therefore establish the late persistence of
Neandertals in this southwestern cul-de-sac of Europe. This reinforces
the conclusion that the Neandertals were not merely swept away by
advancing modern humans. The behavioral differences between these
human groups must have been more subtle than the Middle-to-Upper
Paleolithic technological contrasts might imply.
In addition, the Palomas Neandertals variably exhibit a series of
modern human features rare or absent in earlier Neandertals. Either
they were evolving on their own towards the modern human pattern, or
more likely, they had contact with early modern humans around the
Pyrenees. If the latter, it implies that the persistence of the Middle
Paleolithic in Iberia was a matter of choice, and not cultural
retardation.
From the Sima de las Palomas, other late Neandertal sites, and recent
discoveries of the earliest modern humans across Europe, a complex
picture is emerging of shifting contact between behaviorally similar,
if culturally and biologically different, human populations. We are
coming to see them all more as people, flexibly making a living
through the changing human and natural landscapes of the Late
Pleistocene.
http://www.newswise
Source Link
No comments:
Post a Comment