By FRANK JORDANS
1 of 8
However homo sapiens’ first venture into the region wasn’t particularly successful, she noted.
“Mandrin modern humans seem to have only survived for a very brief period of time and were replaced again by Neanderthals for several millennia,” she said.
Slimak, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the findings at Mandrin suggest the Rhone River may have been a key link between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.
“We are dealing with one of the most important natural migration corridors of all the ancient world,” he said.
He and his colleagues expect to publish several further significant findings based on the mountain of data collected from the cave. Slimak said a steady supply of sand carried in by the local Mistral winds has helped preserve a rich trove of treasures that rivals other famous archaeological sites.
“Mandrin is like a kind of Neanderthalian Pompeii,” he said.
1 of 8
This undated photo provided by Ludovic Slimak shows scientists working at the entrance of the Mandrin cave, near Montelimar, southern France. Scientists have uncovered fossilized modern human remains and tools sandwiched between Neanderthal remains and tools in the stratigraphic record at a site in the Rhône Valley in France, suggesting occupation of the area alternated between Neanderthals and modern humans. (Ludovic Slimak via AP)
BERLIN (AP) — A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting both Neanderthals and modern humans long before the latter were thought to have reached that part of Europe, a new study suggests.
In a paper published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the United States described finding fossilized homo sapiens remains and tools sandwiched between those of Neanderthals in the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French folk hero.
“The findings provide archaeological evidence that these hominin cousins may have coexisted in the same region of Europe during the same time period,” the team said.
Using new techniques, the authors dated some of the human remains to about 54,000 years ago — almost 10,000 years earlier than previous finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.
“This significantly deepens the known age of the colonization of Europe by modern humans,” said Michael Petraglia, an expert on prehistory at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Petraglia, who was not involved in the study, said it had major implications for understanding the spread of modern humans and our interactions with the Neanderthals.
BERLIN (AP) — A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting both Neanderthals and modern humans long before the latter were thought to have reached that part of Europe, a new study suggests.
In a paper published Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the United States described finding fossilized homo sapiens remains and tools sandwiched between those of Neanderthals in the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French folk hero.
“The findings provide archaeological evidence that these hominin cousins may have coexisted in the same region of Europe during the same time period,” the team said.
Using new techniques, the authors dated some of the human remains to about 54,000 years ago — almost 10,000 years earlier than previous finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.
“This significantly deepens the known age of the colonization of Europe by modern humans,” said Michael Petraglia, an expert on prehistory at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
Petraglia, who was not involved in the study, said it had major implications for understanding the spread of modern humans and our interactions with the Neanderthals.
The researchers said they spent more than 30 years carefully sifting through layers of dirt inside the cave, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the French Mediterranean city of Marseille. They discovered hundreds of thousands of artifacts that they were able to attribute to either Neanderthals or modern humans. These included advanced stone tools known as “points” that were used by homo sapiens — our closest ancestors — to cut or scrape and as spear tips.
Similar tools from almost the exact same period have been found some 3,000 kilometers (nearly 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that modern humans with a common culture may have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, said Ludovic Slimak, one of the lead authors of the new study.
While the researchers found no evidence of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and modern humans who alternated in the cave, the rapid succession of occupants is in itself significant, they said. In one case, the cave changed hands in the space of about a year, said Slimak.
Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not involved in the study, said the findings upend the idea that most of the European continent was the exclusive domain of Neanderthals until 45,000 years ago.
Similar tools from almost the exact same period have been found some 3,000 kilometers (nearly 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that modern humans with a common culture may have traveled across the Mediterranean Sea, said Ludovic Slimak, one of the lead authors of the new study.
While the researchers found no evidence of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and modern humans who alternated in the cave, the rapid succession of occupants is in itself significant, they said. In one case, the cave changed hands in the space of about a year, said Slimak.
Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology at the University of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not involved in the study, said the findings upend the idea that most of the European continent was the exclusive domain of Neanderthals until 45,000 years ago.
“Mandrin modern humans seem to have only survived for a very brief period of time and were replaced again by Neanderthals for several millennia,” she said.
Slimak, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse, said the findings at Mandrin suggest the Rhone River may have been a key link between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.
“We are dealing with one of the most important natural migration corridors of all the ancient world,” he said.
He and his colleagues expect to publish several further significant findings based on the mountain of data collected from the cave. Slimak said a steady supply of sand carried in by the local Mistral winds has helped preserve a rich trove of treasures that rivals other famous archaeological sites.
“Mandrin is like a kind of Neanderthalian Pompeii,” he said.
Study Places Homo Sapiens In Europe Earlier Than Thought
By Pierre CELERIER
02/09/22
Homo sapiens ventured into Neanderthal territory in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to an archaeological study published in Science magazine on Wednesday.
Up to now, archaeological discoveries had indicated that Neanderthals disappeared from the European continent about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of their "cousin" Homo sapiens, barely 5,000years earlier and there was no evidence of an encounter between these two groups.
The new discovery, by a team of archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak of Toulouse University, pushes back the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe to around 54,000 years ago.
Another remarkable finding of the research is that the two types of humans alternated in inhabiting the Mandrin cave in what is now the Rhone region of southern france.
The Mandrin site, first excavated in 1990, includes layer upon layer of archaeological remains dating back over 80,000 years.
"Mandrin is like a kind of neandertalian Pompeii, without catastrophic events, but with continuous filling of sands in the cave deposited progressively by a strong wind, the Mistral," Slimak told AFP.
His team uncoevered a layer, known as the "E layer", containing at least 1,500 cut flint points, more finely executed than the points and blades in the layers above and below.
By Pierre CELERIER
02/09/22
Homo sapiens ventured into Neanderthal territory in Europe much earlier than previously thought, according to an archaeological study published in Science magazine on Wednesday.
Up to now, archaeological discoveries had indicated that Neanderthals disappeared from the European continent about 40,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of their "cousin" Homo sapiens, barely 5,000years earlier and there was no evidence of an encounter between these two groups.
The new discovery, by a team of archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak of Toulouse University, pushes back the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe to around 54,000 years ago.
Another remarkable finding of the research is that the two types of humans alternated in inhabiting the Mandrin cave in what is now the Rhone region of southern france.
The Mandrin site, first excavated in 1990, includes layer upon layer of archaeological remains dating back over 80,000 years.
"Mandrin is like a kind of neandertalian Pompeii, without catastrophic events, but with continuous filling of sands in the cave deposited progressively by a strong wind, the Mistral," Slimak told AFP.
His team uncoevered a layer, known as the "E layer", containing at least 1,500 cut flint points, more finely executed than the points and blades in the layers above and below.
Archaeologists and palaeoanthropologists led by Ludovic Slimak inside the Mandrin cave Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak
Very small in size, some of them less than a centimetre in length, these points "are standardised, to the nearest millimetre, something we haven't seen at all with Neanderthals," said Slimak, a specialist in Neanderthal societies.
These, he explained, were probably arrowheads, unknown in Europe at that time.
He attributes this production to a culture called Neronian, linked to several sites in the Rhone area.
In 2016, Slimak and his team visited the Peabody Museum in Harvard to compare their discoveries with a collection of carved fossils from the Ksar Akil site at the foot of Mount Lebanon, one of the major sites of the expansion of Homo sapiens to the east of the Mediterranean.
The similarity between the techniques used convinced Slimak that the findings at the Mandrin site were the first traces of Home Sapiens found in Europe.
A milk tooth found in the "E layer" confirmed his suspicions.
Very small in size, some of them less than a centimetre in length, these points "are standardised, to the nearest millimetre, something we haven't seen at all with Neanderthals," said Slimak, a specialist in Neanderthal societies.
These, he explained, were probably arrowheads, unknown in Europe at that time.
He attributes this production to a culture called Neronian, linked to several sites in the Rhone area.
In 2016, Slimak and his team visited the Peabody Museum in Harvard to compare their discoveries with a collection of carved fossils from the Ksar Akil site at the foot of Mount Lebanon, one of the major sites of the expansion of Homo sapiens to the east of the Mediterranean.
The similarity between the techniques used convinced Slimak that the findings at the Mandrin site were the first traces of Home Sapiens found in Europe.
A milk tooth found in the "E layer" confirmed his suspicions.
Some of the manmade fossils discovered in the cave which led to the archaeological findings Photo: Handout via AFP / Ludovic Slimak
In all researchers found nine teeth at the Mandrin cave site, belonging to six individuals.
These ancient teeth were entrusted to Clement Zanolli, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Bordeaux.
Using microtomography, similar to medical scanning technology, the verdict was clear.
The milk tooth from the "E" layer" was the only modern human tooth found at the site.
That "fossil molar from a modern human child provides the earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe", the Natural History Museum in London said in a statement
The archaeological team then used a pioneering technique, fuliginochronology, which analyses layers of soot impregnating the walls of a cave and the traces of ancient fires.
The reachers demonstrated that "this Modern human population occupied this Rhone territory for some 40 years," said Slimak.
At some point, the two populations either co-existed in the cave or on the same territory, the researcher concluded.
He imagines that Neanderthals could have served as guides to Homo Sapiens to lead him to the best sources of flint available, some of which were located up to 90 kilometres (55 miles away.
"Nothing new under the sun... This is precisely what happened when Europeans began the colonization of the Americas or Australia," he noted.
"The findings from Mandrin are really exciting and are another piece in the puzzle of how and when modern humans arrived in Europe,? concludes Professor Chris Stringer, co-author of the study and a specialist in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London.
"Understanding more about the overlap between modern humans and other hominins in Eurasia is vital to understanding more about their interactions, and how we became the last remaining human species," he added.
This overlap, which was evident in Mandrin, now places the Rhone region as a "major migration corridor (for Homo sapiens) enabling them to reach the Mediterranean and continental European areas", said Slimak, who promises more discoveries from the Mandrin site.
© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.
In all researchers found nine teeth at the Mandrin cave site, belonging to six individuals.
These ancient teeth were entrusted to Clement Zanolli, a palaeoanthropologist at the University of Bordeaux.
Using microtomography, similar to medical scanning technology, the verdict was clear.
The milk tooth from the "E" layer" was the only modern human tooth found at the site.
That "fossil molar from a modern human child provides the earliest known evidence of modern humans in western Europe", the Natural History Museum in London said in a statement
The archaeological team then used a pioneering technique, fuliginochronology, which analyses layers of soot impregnating the walls of a cave and the traces of ancient fires.
The reachers demonstrated that "this Modern human population occupied this Rhone territory for some 40 years," said Slimak.
At some point, the two populations either co-existed in the cave or on the same territory, the researcher concluded.
He imagines that Neanderthals could have served as guides to Homo Sapiens to lead him to the best sources of flint available, some of which were located up to 90 kilometres (55 miles away.
"Nothing new under the sun... This is precisely what happened when Europeans began the colonization of the Americas or Australia," he noted.
"The findings from Mandrin are really exciting and are another piece in the puzzle of how and when modern humans arrived in Europe,? concludes Professor Chris Stringer, co-author of the study and a specialist in human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London.
"Understanding more about the overlap between modern humans and other hominins in Eurasia is vital to understanding more about their interactions, and how we became the last remaining human species," he added.
This overlap, which was evident in Mandrin, now places the Rhone region as a "major migration corridor (for Homo sapiens) enabling them to reach the Mediterranean and continental European areas", said Slimak, who promises more discoveries from the Mandrin site.
© Copyright AFP 2022. All rights reserved.
No comments:
Post a Comment