ALBERT

Description: The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several 'transitional' technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Chatelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Chatelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ~45,000-43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Benazzi, Stefano -- Douka, Katerina -- Fornai, Cinzia -- Bauer, Catherine C -- Kullmer, Ottmar -- Svoboda, Jiri -- Pap, Ildiko -- Mallegni, Francesco -- Bayle, Priscilla -- Coquerelle, Michael -- Condemi, Silvana -- Ronchitelli, Annamaria -- Harvati, Katerina -- Weber, Gerhard W -- England -- Nature. 2011 Nov 2;479(7374):525-8. doi: 10.1038/nature10617.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria. stefano.benazzi@univie.ac.at〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22048311" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: The lack of Late Pleistocene human fossils from sub-Saharan Africa has limited paleontological testing of competing models of recent human evolution. We have dated a skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, to 36.2 +/- 3.3 thousand years ago through a combination of optically stimulated luminescence and uranium-series dating methods. The skull is morphologically modern overall but displays some archaic features. Its strongest morphometric affinities are with Upper Paleolithic (UP) Eurasians rather than recent, geographically proximate people. The Hofmeyr cranium is consistent with the hypothesis that UP Eurasians descended from a population that emigrated from sub-Saharan Africa in the Late Pleistocene.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Grine, F E -- Bailey, R M -- Harvati, K -- Nathan, R P -- Morris, A G -- Henderson, G M -- Ribot, I -- Pike, A W G -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2007 Jan 12;315(5809):226-9.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Departments of Anthropology and Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4364, USA. fgrine@notes.cc.sunysb.edu〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17218524" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Modern humans arrived in Europe ~45,000 years ago, but little is known about their genetic composition before the start of farming ~8,500 years ago. Here we analyse genome-wide data from 51 Eurasians from ~45,000-7,000 years ago. Over this time, the proportion of Neanderthal DNA decreased from 3-6% to around 2%, consistent with natural selection against Neanderthal variants in modern humans. Whereas there is no evidence of the earliest modern humans in Europe contributing to the genetic composition of present-day Europeans, all individuals between ~37,000 and ~14,000 years ago descended from a single founder population which forms part of the ancestry of present-day Europeans. An ~35,000-year-old individual from northwest Europe represents an early branch of this founder population which was then displaced across a broad region, before reappearing in southwest Europe at the height of the last Ice Age ~19,000 years ago. During the major warming period after ~14,000 years ago, a genetic component related to present-day Near Easterners became widespread in Europe. These results document how population turnover and migration have been recurring themes of European prehistory.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Fu, Qiaomei -- Posth, Cosimo -- Hajdinjak, Mateja -- Petr, Martin -- Mallick, Swapan -- Fernandes, Daniel -- Furtwangler, Anja -- Haak, Wolfgang -- Meyer, Matthias -- Mittnik, Alissa -- Nickel, Birgit -- Peltzer, Alexander -- Rohland, Nadin -- Slon, Viviane -- Talamo, Sahra -- Lazaridis, Iosif -- Lipson, Mark -- Mathieson, Iain -- Schiffels, Stephan -- Skoglund, Pontus -- Derevianko, Anatoly P -- Drozdov, Nikolai -- Slavinsky, Vyacheslav -- Tsybankov, Alexander -- Cremonesi, Renata Grifoni -- Mallegni, Francesco -- Gely, Bernard -- Vacca, Eligio -- Morales, Manuel R Gonzalez -- Straus, Lawrence G -- Neugebauer-Maresch, Christine -- Teschler-Nicola, Maria -- Constantin, Silviu -- Moldovan, Oana Teodora -- Benazzi, Stefano -- Peresani, Marco -- Coppola, Donato -- Lari, Martina -- Ricci, Stefano -- Ronchitelli, Annamaria -- Valentin, Frederique -- Thevenet, Corinne -- Wehrberger, Kurt -- Grigorescu, Dan -- Rougier, Helene -- Crevecoeur, Isabelle -- Flas, Damien -- Semal, Patrick -- Mannino, Marcello A -- Cupillard, Christophe -- Bocherens, Herve -- Conard, Nicholas J -- Harvati, Katerina -- Moiseyev, Vyacheslav -- Drucker, Dorothee G -- Svoboda, Jiri -- Richards, Michael P -- Caramelli, David -- Pinhasi, Ron -- Kelso, Janet -- Patterson, Nick -- Krause, Johannes -- Paabo, Svante -- Reich, David -- Nature. 2016 May 2. doi: 10.1038/nature17993.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, IVPP, CAS, Beijing 100044, China. ; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Archaeo- and Palaeogenetics, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Department of Archaeogenetics, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, 07745 Jena, Germany. ; Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142, USA. ; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. ; School of Archaeology and Earth Institute, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland. ; CIAS, Department of Life Sciences, University of Coimbra, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal. ; Australian Centre for Ancient DNA, School of Biological Sciences, The University of Adelaide, SA-5005 Adelaide, Australia. ; Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Siberian Branch, 17 Novosibirsk, RU-630090, Russia. ; Altai State University, Barnaul, RU-656049, Russia. ; Dipartimento di Civilta e Forme del Sapere, Universita di Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy. ; Department of Biology, University of Pisa, 56126 Pisa, Italy. ; Direction regionale des affaires culturelles Rhone-Alpes, 69283 Lyon, Cedex 01, France. ; Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita degli Studi di Bari 'Aldo Moro', 70125 Bari, Italy. ; Instituto Internacional de Investigaciones Prehistoricas, Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain. ; Department of Anthropology, MSC01 1040, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131-0001, USA. ; Quaternary Archaeology, Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology, Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1010 Vienna, Austria. ; Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum Vienna, 1010 Vienna, Austria. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Vienna, 1090 Vienna, Austria. ; "Emil Racovita" Institute of Speleology, 010986 Bucharest 12, Romania. ; "Emil Racovita" Institute of Speleology, Cluj Branch, 400006 Cluj, Romania. ; Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Bologna, 48121 Ravenna, Italy. ; Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche, Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici, Universita di Ferrara, 44100 Ferrara, Italy. ; Universita degli Studi di Bari 'Aldo Moro', 70125 Bari, Italy. ; Museo di "Civilta preclassiche della Murgia meridionale", 72017 Ostuni, Italy. ; Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita di Firenze, 50122 Florence, Italy. ; Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, della Terra e dell'Ambiente, U.R. Preistoria e Antropologia, Universita degli Studi di Siena, 53100 Siena, Italy. ; CNRS/UMR 7041 ArScAn MAE, 92023 Nanterre, France. ; INRAP/UMR 8215 Trajectoires 21, 92023 Nanterre, France. ; Ulmer Museum, 89073 Ulm, Germany. ; University of Bucharest, Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, Department of Geology, 01041 Bucharest, Romania. ; Department of Anthropology, California State University Northridge, Northridge, California 91330-8244, USA. ; Universite de Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5199-PACEA, 33615 Pessac Cedex, France. ; TRACES - UMR 5608, Universite Toulouse Jean Jaures, Maison de la Recherche, 31058 Toulouse Cedex 9, France. ; Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, 1000 Brussels, Belgium. ; Department of Archaeology, School of Culture and Society, Aarhus University, 8270 Hojbjerg, Denmark. ; Service Regional d'Archeologie de Franche-Comte, 25043 Besancon Cedex, France. ; Laboratoire Chronoenvironnement, UMR 6249 du CNRS, UFR des Sciences et Techniques, 25030 Besancon Cedex, France. ; Department of Geosciences, Biogeology, University of Tubingen, 72074 Tubingen, Germany. ; Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, University of Tubingen, 72072 Tubingen, Germany. ; Department of Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Institute for Archaeological Sciences, Paleoanthropology, University of Tubingen, 72070 Tubingen, Germany. ; Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography, Saint Petersburg 34, Russia. ; Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University, 611 37 Brno, Czech Republic. ; Institute of Archaeology at Brno, Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, 69129 Dolni Vestonice, Czech Republic. ; Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27135931" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Despite broad consensus on Africa as the main place of origin for anatomically modern humans, their dispersal pattern out of the continent continues to be intensely debated. In extant human populations, the observation of decreasing genetic and phenotypic diversity at increasing distances from sub-Saharan Africa has been interpreted as evidence...

Description: Neandertal manual activities, as previously reconstructed from their robust hand skeletons, are thought to involve systematic power grasping rather than precise hand movements. However, this interpretation is at odds with increasing archeological evidence for sophisticated cultural behavior. We reevaluate the manipulative behaviors of Neandertals and early modern humans using a historical reference sample with extensive genealogical and lifelong occupational documentation, in combination with a new and precise three-dimensional multivariate analysis of hand muscle attachments. Results show that Neandertal muscle marking patterns overlap exclusively with documented lifelong precision workers, reflecting systematic precision grasping consistent with the use of their associated cultural remains. Our findings challenge the established interpretation of Neandertal behavior and establish a solid link between biological and cultural remains in the fossil record.