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Fragmentary bone fossils and a molar found in Bulgaria dating back to approximately 45,000 years ago show that Homo sapiens populations spread to Europe, until then a stronghold for Neanderthals, earlier than previously known, scientists said Monday. .
The researchers said that the DNA from the five fossils in Bulgaria’s Bacho Kiro cave showed that they belonged to anatomically modern Homo sapiens. This evidence settled a debate over who made a remarkable variety of artifacts at the site, including stone and bone tools and pendants made from cave bear teeth – it was our species in the cave and not Neanderthals.
Stone artifacts from the Bacho Kiro cave in Bulgaria of pointed leaves and fragments, sandstone beads with a morphology similar to bone beads, and the longest full sheet are seen in an image published on May 11, 2020. (Booklet via REUTERS / Tsenka Tsanova)
Research puts Homo sapiens’ arrival in Europe back thousands of years, a milestone in the history of a species that emerged in Africa some 300,000 years ago and then spread throughout the world.
The human remains of the cave range from 43,000 to 46,000 years, while the associated artifacts were up to 47,000 years old, said paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.
“It appears that this is the time of the first wave of modern humans in the mid-latitudes of Eurasia,” added Hublin, with evidence of the presence of Homo sapiens relatively soon after in similar latitudes from Moravia to Mongolia.
Neanderthals, more robustly built than Homo sapiens, had already inhabited Europe for hundreds of thousands of years. Hublin said the new findings indicate that the two species overlapped for about 8,000 years before Neanderthals went extinct.
Also read: fossil teeth produce the oldest genetic material of extinct human species
There is debate about what condemned Neanderthals, including the possibility that our species would annihilate them after thousands of years of interactions, including miscegenation that left an indelible mark on the human genome.
“In my opinion, Neanderthals disappeared from Europe due to competition with our species. However, this did not happen overnight,” said Hublin, lead author of the research published in the journal Nature along with a second study. at Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Animal remains in the cave revealed hunting and butchering of cave bears, bison, giant deer, horses, hyenas, and lions.
The artifacts include pointed flint leaves and numerous personal ornaments, including a bead made of mammoth ivory and bear tooth pendants. Those pendants bear striking similarities to later made by Neanderthals in Western Europe, indicating that our closest evolutionary cousins adopted aspects of the Homo sapiens culture.
“The DNA evidence is now certain that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interacted when they came into contact with each other. In some places, those interactions may even have been ‘friendly’, for lack of a better word,” the study said and anthropologist from New York University. co-author Shara Bailey. “We carry their DNA and were influenced by our cultural innovations.”
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