The evidence for modern human origins in Central Europe: 30 years since Smith's seminal review (original) (raw)
Related papers
Modern Human Origins in Central Europe
The Origin of Modern Humans: Biology Reconsidered, 2013
Central European evidence has proven invaluable to our understanding of modern human origins. Important early discoveries such as Feldhofer and Krapina have continued to offer new insights on Neandertal biology and lifeways, as have large samples of early modern humans. More recently, the discoveries at Vindija Cave and sites in Romania have provided more information on the period and process of the Neandertal – modern transition. New dating techniques and their direct application to fossil remains have provided more chronological clarity. The genetic revolution, including the sequencing of the Neandertal genome, has shifted our field’s theoretical focus twice: 1) from a perspective that favored overall regional continuity to one of complete replacement and 2) from complete replacement to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamics of origins and admixture. We contend that the available evidence from Central Europe is most commensurate with the Assimilation Model of modern human origins, although some other models cannot be ruled out. The exact patterns of admixture between Neandertals and modern humans must await further evidence and analyses.
Morphological Evidence for Modern Human Influences in Late Central European Neandertals
2015
The long-standing debate on the role of Neandertals in the emergence of modern humans in Eurasia has been partially resolved by the genetic indications of relatively small, but not insignificant, Neandertal contributions to modern Eurasian populations. The relatively small contributions of Neandertals to modern humans likely stems from demographic factors limiting Neandertal population sizes. One of the issues not addressed by the genetic data was the impact of early modern human immigrant populations on the late Neandertals inhabiting Eurasia between ~35,000 and 45,000 years ago. East Central Europe, the area of focus for most of Karel Valoch's work, provides evidence of late Neandertals from the sites of Vindija (Croatia) and Šipka and Kůlna (Czech Republic). Analysis of the fragmentary Vindija specimens demonstrates an anatomical pattern reflecting reduction in facial size and prognathism. This pattern is consistent in all individuals but is projected onto a total morphologic...
Upper pleistocene human remains from Vindija cave, Croatia, Yugoslavia
American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1981
Human remains excavated from Vindija cave include a large although fragmentary sample of late Mousterian-associated specimens and a few additional individuals from the overlying early Upper Paleolithic levels. The Mousterian-associated sample is similar to European Neandertals from other regions. Compared with earlier Neandertals from south central Europe, this sample evinces evolutionary trends in the direction of Upper Paleolithic Europeans. Compared with the western European Neandertals, the same trends can be demonstrated, although the magnitude of difference is less, and there is a potential for confusing temporal with regional sources of variation. The early Upper Paleolithic-associated sample cannot be distinguished from the Mousterian-associated hominids. We believe that this site provides support for Hrdlička's “Neandertal phase” of human evolution, as it was originally applied in Europe.
Direct Radiocarbon Dates for Vindija G1 and Velika Pecina Late Pleistocene Hominid Remains
Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences, 1999
New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates taken directly on human remains from the Late Pleistocene sites of Vindija and Velika Pecina in the Hrvatsko Zagorje of Croatia are presented. Hominid specimens from both sites have played critical roles in the development of current perspectives on modern human evolutionary emergence in Europe. Dates of ≈ 28 thousand years (ka) before the present (B.P.) and ≈ 29 ka B.P. for two specimens from Vindija G1 establish them as the most recent dated Neandertals in the Eurasian range of these archaic humans. The human frontal bone from Velika Pecina, generally considered one of the earliest representatives of modern humans in Europe, dated to ≈ 5 ka B.P., rendering it no longer pertinent to discussions of modern human origins. Apart from invalidating the only radiometrically based example of temporal overlap between late Neandertal and early modern human fossil remains from within any region of Europe, these dates raise the question of when early modern humans first dispersed into Europe and have implications for the nature and geographic patterning of biological and cultural interactions between these populations and the Neandertals.
Initial Upper Palaeolithic humans in Europe had recent Neanderthal ancestry
Nature
Modern humans appeared in Europe by at least 45,000 years ago1–5, but the extent of their interactions with Neanderthals, who disappeared by about 40,000 years ago6, and their relationship to the broader expansion of modern humans outside Africa are poorly understood. Here we present genome-wide data from three individuals dated to between 45,930 and 42,580 years ago from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria1,2. They are the earliest Late Pleistocene modern humans known to have been recovered in Europe so far, and were found in association with an Initial Upper Palaeolithic artefact assemblage. Unlike two previously studied individuals of similar ages from Romania7 and Siberia8 who did not contribute detectably to later populations, these individuals are more closely related to present-day and ancient populations in East Asia and the Americas than to later west Eurasian populations. This indicates that they belonged to a modern human migration into Europe that was not previously known from the...