Neanderthal & Middle Paleolithic – Robert Jurmain reference book
Critical Thinking Questions
- Why are the Middle Pleistocene hominins called premodern humans? In what ways are they human?
- What is the general popular conception of Neandertals? Do you agree with this view? (Cite both
anatomical and archaeological evidence to support your conclusion.) - What evidence suggests that Neandertals deliberately buried their dead? Do you think the fact that they buried their dead is important? Why? How would you interpret this behavior (remembering that Neandertals were not identical to us)?
- How are species defined, both for living animals and for extinct ones? Use the Neandertals to illustrate the problems encountered in distinguishing species among extinct hominins. Contrast specifically the interpretation of Neandertals as a distinct species with the interpretation of Neandertals as a subspecies of H. sapiens.
- Compare premodern humans with earlier hominins (specifically, Homo erectus) both anatomically and in terms of what the archaeological evidence tells us.
- Explain why premodern humans are called “humans” and how they relate to modern humans.
- Explain how the latest DNA evidence helps resolve the issue of whether the Neandertals are a different species from living people.
What do you think of when you hear the term Neandertal? Most people think of imbecilic, hunched- over brutes. Yet, Neandertals were quite advanced; they had brains at least as large as ours, and they showed many sophisticated cultural capabilities. What’s more, they definitely weren’t hunched over,
but were fully erect (as hominins had been for millions of years). In fact, Neandertals and their immediate predecessors could easily be called human.
That brings us to possibly the most basic of all questions: What does it mean to be human? The meaning of this term is highly varied, encompassing religious, philosophical, and biological considerations. Physical anthropologists primarily concentrate on the biological aspects of the human organism, while archaeologists seek to understand how human cultural capacities have developed and changed over time. All living people today are members of one species, sharing a common anatomical pattern and similar behavioral potentials. We call hominins like us “modern Homo sapiens,” and in the next chapter, we’ll discuss the origin of forms that were essentially identical to people living today.
When in our evolutionary past can we say that our predecessors were obviously human? Certainly, the further back we go in time, the less hominins look like modern Homo sapiens. This is, of course, exactly what we’d expect in an evolutionary sequence. We saw that Homo erectus took crucial steps in the human direction and defined a new adaptive level in human evolution. In this chapter, we’ll discuss the hominins who continued this journey. Both physically and behaviorally, they’re much like modern Homo sapiens, though they still show several significant differences. So while most paleoanthropologists are comfortable referring to these hominins as “human,” we need to qualify this recognition a bit to set them apart from fully modern people. Thus, in this text, we’ll refer to these fascinating immediate predecessors as “premodern humans.”
When, Where, and What
Most of the hominins discussed in this chapter lived during the Middle Pleistocene, a period beginning 780,000 ya and ending 125,000 ya. In addition, some of the later premodern humans, especially the Neandertals, lived well into the Late Pleistocene (125,000–10,000 ya). Viewed archaeologically, significant cultural changes of the late Lower Paleolithic and all of the Middle Paleolithic, which began about 200,000 ya and ended around 40,000–30,000 ya.
The Pleistocene
The Pleistocene has been called the Ice Age because, as had occurred before in geological history, it was marked by periodic advances and retreats of massive continental glaciations. During glacial periods, when temperatures dropped dramatically, ice accumulated as a result of more snow falling each year than melted, causing the advance of massive glaciers measuring nearly a mile thick. As the climate fluctuated, at times it became much warmer.
During these interglacials, the ice that had built up during the glacial periods melted, and the glaciers retreated back toward the earth’s polar regions. The Pleistocene was characterized by numerous advances and retreats of ice, with at least 15 major and 50 minor glacial advances documented in Europe alone (Tattersall et al., 1988).
These glaciations, which enveloped huge swaths of Europe, Asia, and North America as well as Antarctica, were mostly confined to northern latitudes. Hominins living at this time—all still restricted to the Old World—were severely affected as the climate, flora, and animal life shifted during these Pleistocene oscillations. The most dramatic of these effects were in Europe and northern Asia—less so in southern Asia and in Africa.
Still, the climate also fluctuated in the south. In Africa, the main effects were related to changing rainfall patterns. During glacial periods, the climate in Africa became more arid; during interglacials, rainfall increased. The changing availability of food resources certainly affected hominins in Africa; but probably even more importantly, migration routes also swung back and forth. For example, during glacial periods, the Sahara Desert expanded, blocking migration in and out of sub-Saharan Africa (Lahr and Foley, 1998) In Eurasia, glacial advances also greatly affected migration routes. As the ice sheets expanded, sea levels dropped nearly 500 feet (150 m) below modern levels, more northern regions became uninhabitable, and some key passages between areas became blocked by glaciers. For example, during glacial peaks, much of western Europe would have been cut off from the rest of Eurasia.
During the warmer—and, in the south, wetter—interglacials, the ice sheets shrank, sea levels rose, and certain migration routes reopened (for example, from central Europe into western Europe). Clearly, to understand Middle Pleistocene hominins, it’s crucial to view them within their shifting Pleistocene world.
Dispersal of Middle Pleistocene Hominins
Like their Homo erectus predecessors, later hominins were widely distributed in the Old World, with discoveries coming from three continents—Africa, Asia, and Europe. For the first time, Europe became more permanently and densely occupied, as Middle Pleistocene hominins have been discovered widely from England, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Hungary, and Greece. Africa, as well, probably continued as a central area of hominin occupation, and finds have come from North, East, and South Africa. Finally, Asia has yielded several important finds, especially from China. We should point out, though, that these Middle Pleistocene premodern humans didn’t vastly extend the geographical range of Homo erectus, but rather largely replaced the earlier hominins in previously exploited habitats. One exception appears to be the more successful occupation of Europe, a region where earlier hominins have only sporadically been found.
Middle Pleistocene Hominins: Terminology
The premodern humans of the Middle Pleistocene (that is, after 780,000 ya) generally succeeded H. erectus. Still, in some areas—especially in Southeast Asia— there apparently was a long period of coexistence, lasting 300,000 years or longer; you’ll recall the very late dates for the Javanese Ngandong H. erectus .
The earliest premodern humans exhibit several H. erectus characteristics: The face is large, the brows are projected, the forehead is low, and in some cases the cranial vault is still thick. Even so, some of their other features show that they were more derived toward the modern condition than were their H. erectus predecessors. Compared with H. erectus, these premodern humans possessed an increased brain size, a more rounded braincase (that is, maximum breadth is higher up on the sides), a more vertical nose, and a less angled back of the skull (occipital). We should note that the time span encompassed by Middle Pleistocene premodern humans is at least 500,000 years, so it’s no surprise that over time we can observe certain trends. Later Middle Pleistocene hominins, for example, show even more brain expansion and an even less angled occipital than do earlier forms.
We know that premodern humans were a diverse group dispersed over three continents. Deciding how to classify them has been disputed for decades, and anthropologists still have disagreements. However, a growing consensus has recently emerged. Beginning perhaps as early as 850,000 ya and extending to about 200,000 ya, the fossils from Africa and Europe are placed within Homo heidelbergensis, named after a fossil found in Germany in 1907. What’s more, some Asian specimens possibly represent a regional variant of H. heidelbergensis.
Until recently, many researchers regarded these fossils as early, but more primitive, members of Homo sapiens. In recognition of this somewhat transitional status, the fossils were called “ archaic Homo sapiens,” with all later humans also belonging to the species Homo sapiens. However, most paleoanthropologists now find this terminology unsatisfactory. For example, Phillip Rightmire concludes
that “simply lumping diverse ancient groups with living populations obscures their differences” (1998, p. 226). In our own discussion, we recognize H. heidelbergensis as a transitional species between H. erectus and later hominins (that is, primarily H. sapiens). Keep in mind, however, that this species was probably an ancestor of both modern humans and Neandertals. It’s debatable whether H.heidelbergensis actually represents a fully separate species in the biological sense, that is, following the biological species concept . Still, it’s useful to give this group of premodern humans a separate name to make this important stage of human evolution more easily identifiable. (We’ll return to this issue later in the chapter when we discuss the theoretical implications in more detail.
Premodern Humans of the Middle Pleistocene Africa
In Africa, premodern fossils have been found at several sites. One of the best known is Kabwe (Broken Hill). At this site in Zambia, fieldworkers discovered a complete cranium together with other cranial and postcranial elements belonging to several individuals. In this and other African premodern specimens, we can see a mixture of primitive and more derived traits. The skull’s massive browridge (one of the largest of any hominin), low vault, and prominent occipital torus recall those of H. erectus. On the other hand, the occipital region is less angulated, the cranial vault bones are thinner, and the cranial base is essentially modern. Dating estimates of Kabwe and most of the other premodern fossils from Africa have ranged throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene, but recent estimates have given dates for most of the sites in the range of 600,000–125,000 ya. Bodo is another significant African premodern fossil (Fig. 11-4). A nearly complete cranium, Bodo has been dated to relatively early in the Middle Pleistocene (estimated at 600,000 ya), making it one of the oldest specimens of H. heidelbergensis from the African continent. The Bodo cranium is particularly interesting because it shows a distinctive pattern of cut marks, similar to modifications seen on butchered animal bones. Researchers have thus hypothesized that the Bodo individual was defleshed by other hominins, but for what purpose is not clear. The defleshing may have been related to cannibalism, though it also may have been for some other purpose, such as ritual. In any case, this is the earliest evidence of deliberate bone processing of hominins by hominins (White, 1986).
A number of other crania from South and East Africa also show a combination of retained ancestral with more derived (modern) characteristics, and they’re all mentioned in the literature as being similar to Kabwe. The most important of these African finds come from the sites of Florisbad and Elandsfontein (in South Africa) and Laetoli (in Tanzania). The general similarities in all these African premodern fossils indicate a close relationship between them, almost certainly representing a single species (most commonly referred to as H. heidelbergensis). These African premodern humans also are quite similar to those found in Europe.
Europe
More fossil hominins of Middle Pleistocene age have been found in Europe than in any other region. Maybe it’s because more archaeologists have been searching longer in Europe than anywhere else. In any case, during the Middle Pleistocene, Europe was more widely and consistently occupied than it was earlier in human evolution. The time range of European premodern humans extends the full length of the Middle Pleistocene and beyond. At the earlier end, the Gran Dolina finds from northern Spain are definitely not Homo erectus. The Gran Dolina remains may, as proposed by Spanish researchers, be members of a new hominin species.
However, Rightmire (1998) has suggested that the Gran Dolina hominins may simply represent the earliest well-dated occurrence of H. heidelbergensis, possibly dating as early as 850,000 ya. More recent and more completely studied H. heidelbergensis fossils have been found throughout much of Europe. Examples of these finds come from Steinheim (Germany), Petralona (Greece), Swanscombe (England), Arago (France), and another cave site at Atapuerca (Spain) known as Sima de los Huesos. Like their African counterparts, these European premoderns have retained certain H. erectus traits, but they’re mixed with more derived ones— for example, increased cranial capacity, less angled occiput, parietal expansion, and reduced tooth size.
The hominins from the Atapuerca site of Sima de los Huesos are especially interesting. These finds come from another cave in the same area as the Gran Dolina discoveries, but are slightly younger, likely dating to between 500,000 and 400,000 ya. Using a different dating method, a date as early as 600,000 ya has been proposed (Bischoff et al., 2007), but most researchers prefer the more conservative later dating (Green et al., 2010; Wood, 2010). A total of at least 28 individuals have been recovered from Sima de los Huesos, which literally means “pit of bones.” In fact, with more than 4,000 fossil fragments recovered, Sima de los Huesos contains more than 80 percent of all Middle Pleistocene hominin remains in the world (Bermúdez de Castro et al., 2004).
Excavations continue at this remarkable site, where bones have somehow accumulated within a deep chamber inside a cave. From initial descriptions, paleoanthropologists interpret the hominin morphology as showing several indications of an early Neandertal-like pattern, with arching browridges, projecting midface, and other Neandertal features (Rightmire, 1998).
Asia
Like their contemporaries in Europe and Africa, Asian premodern specimens discovered in China also display both earlier and later characteristics. Chinese paleoanthropologists suggest that the more ancestral traits, such as a sagittal ridge and flattened nasal bones, are shared with H. erectus fossils from Zhoukoudian. They also point out that some of these features can be found in modern H. sapiens in China today, indicating substantial genetic continuity. That is, some Chinese researchers have argued that anatomically, modern Chinese didn’t evolve from H. sapiens in either Europe or Africa; instead, they evolved locally in China from a separate H. erectus lineage. Whether such regional evolution occurred or whether anatomically modern migrants from Africa displaced local populations has for years been the subject of ongoing debate in paleoanthropology. This important controversy will be a central focus of the next chapter.
Dali, the most complete skull of the later Middle or early Late Pleistocene fossils in China, displays H. erectus and H. sapiens traits, with a cranial capacity of 1,120 cm3 . Like Dali, several other Chinese specimens combine both earlier and later traits. In addition, a partial skeleton from Jinniushan, in northeast China, has been given a provisional date of 200,000 ya (Tiemel et al., 1994). The cranial capacity is fairly large (approximately 1,260 cm3 ), and the walls of the braincase are thin. These are both modern features, and they’re somewhat unexpected in an individual this ancient—if the dating estimate is indeed correct. Experts are divided concerning just how to classify these Chinese Middle Pleistocene hominins. More recently, though, a leading paleoanthropologist has concluded that they’re regional variants of H. heidelbergensis (Rightmire, 2004).
The Pleistocene world forced many small populations into geographical isolation. Most of these regional populations no doubt died out. Some, however, did evolve, and their descendants are likely a major part of the later hominin fossil record. In Africa, H. heidelbergensis is hypothesized to have evolved into modern H. sapiens. In Europe, H. heidelbergensis evolved into Neandertals. Meanwhile, the Chinese premodern populations may all have met with extinction. Right now, though, there’s no consensus on the status or the likely fate of these enigmatic Asian Middle Pleistocene hominins .
Lower Paleolithic Premodern Human Culture
Acheulian technology changed relatively little until near the end of the Lower Paleolithic. Flake tools and hand axes, many of which are smaller than early Acheulian hand axes, are commonly found in European assemblages. Amazingly, a few wooden artifacts have also been uncovered in the excavation of several late Acheulian sites. For example, at Schöningen, in the Harz Mountain region of Germany, archaeologists discovered more than six wooden spears between 6 and 8 feet long. These and other wooden tools were found with the remains of horses and other big game, the bones of some bearing cut marks from having been butchered by Lower Paleolithic hunters (Thieme, 2005).
Among their technological accomplishments, about 300,000 ya, later premodern humans in Africa and Europe invented the prepared-core method for striking flakes from stone cores (Klein ,1999). Requiring several coordinated steps, a prepared-core method called the Levallois technique required a toolmaker to work each stone core into a preplanned shape before beginning to detach flakes from it . While this may sound like more trouble than it was worth, the prepared-core method enabled toolmakers to strike off flakes of predictable shape and get more usable flakes from each core. Hominin populations adapted to the seasonal climatic extremes of life outside the tropics in many ways, eventually including the controlled use of fire and the construction of shelters. Surprisingly, the controlled use of fire does not appear to have been essential to the spread of hominins into northern latitudes. The most convincing archaeological evidence of hominin fire use in Eurasia comes from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, where researchers report burned wood, seeds, and flint flakes from contexts dated stratigraphically to nearly 790,000 ya (Goren-Inbar et al., 2004). Given such evidence, we might reasonably expect to see considerable additional evidence throughout the Pleistocene if it was an important cultural adaptation to life in colder climates. What researchers are actually finding is that the earliest habitual use of fire dates only to about 400,000–300,000 ya in Europe, or some 700,000 years after hominins entered the continent (Roebroeks and Villa, 2011). In other words, the controlled use of fire could not have been an essential cultural component of the initial dispersal of early hominins into Europe or, by implication, other northern-latitude regions.
At roughly the same time that evidence of habitual fire use begins to appear in the archaeological record, researchers also find sites containing patches of artifacts, food waste, stones, and other debris interpreted as the remains of temporary shelters, as well as burned areas interpreted as the remains of hearths or fireplaces. At Terra Amata, a French site on the Mediterranean coast near Nice, excavators uncovered fascinating evidence relating to short-term, seasonal visits by hominin groups, who built flimsy shelters, gathered plants, ate food from the ocean, and possibly hunted medium- to large-sized mammals (de Lumley and de Lumley, 1973; Villa, 1983).
Archaeologists continue to debate the extent to which later Lower Paleolithic hominins were hunters in the same sense as modern hunter- gatherers. With the notable exception of the Schöningen spears mentioned earlier, late Lower Paleolithic sites include few artifacts that could have been true weapons or killing tools. Meat was apparently an important part of the diet for at least some populations, and plant foods were undoubtedly so, but archaeologists are generally skeptical that these hominins were true huntergatherers in the modern sense.
The Middle Paleolithic period began about 200,000 ya in western Europe. Roughly the same period in sub-Saharan Africa is called the Middle Stone Age. As documented by the fossil remains and Middle Paleolithic artifactual evidence, the long period of transitional hominins in Europe continued well into the Late Pleistocene (after 125,000 ya). But with the appearance and expansion of the Neandertals, the evolution of premodern humans took a unique turn.
Neandertals: Premodern Humans of the Late Pleistocene
Since their discovery more than a century ago, the Neandertals have haunted the minds and foiled the best-laid theories of paleoanthropologists. They fit into the general scheme of human evolution, and yet they’re misfits. Classified variously either as H. sapiens or as belonging to a separate species, they are like us and yet different. It’s not easy to put them in their place. Many anthropologists classify Neandertals within H. sapiens, but as a distinctive subspecies, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, with modern H. sapiens designated as Homo sapiens sapiens. However, not all experts agree with this interpretation. The most recent genetic evidence of interbreeding between Neandertals and early modern humans (Green et al., 2010) suggests that complete speciation was never attained. This argues against a clear designation of Neandertals as a species separate from H. sapiens. We’ll discuss in a moment this important evidence in more detail.
Neandertal fossil remains have been found at dates approaching 130,000 ya; but in the following discussion of Neandertals, we’ll focus on those populations that lived during the last major glaciation, which began about 75,000 ya and ended about 10,000 ya . We should also note that the evolutionary roots of Neandertals apparently reach quite far back in western Europe, as evidenced by the 400,000+-yearold remains from Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, in northern Spain. The majority of fossils have been found in Europe, where they’ve been most studied. Our description of Neandertals is based primarily on those specimens, usually called classic Neandertals, from western Europe. Not all Neandertals— including others from eastern Europe and western Asia and those from the interglacial period just before the last glacial one—exactly fit our description of the classic morphology. They tend to be less robust, possibly because the climate in which they lived was not as cold as in western Europe during the last glaciation.
One striking feature of Neandertals is brain size, which in these hominins actually was larger than that of H. sapiens today. The average for contemporary H. sapiens is between 1,300 and 1,400 cm3 ,while for Neandertals it was 1,520 cm3 . The larger size may be associated with the metabolic efficiency of a larger brain in cold weather. The Inuit (Eskimo), also living in very cold areas, have a larger average brain size than most other modern human populations. We should also point out that the larger brain size in both premodern and contemporary human populations adapted to cold climates is partially correlated with larger body size, which has also evolved among these groups .
The classic Neandertal cranium is large, long, low, and bulging at the sides. Viewed from the side, the occipital bone is somewhat bun-shaped, but the marked occipital angle typical of many H. erectus crania is absent. The forehead rises more vertically than that of H. erectus, and the browridges arch over the orbits instead of forming a straight bar .
Compared with anatomically modern humans, the Neandertal face stands out. It projects almost as if it were pulled forward. Postcranially, Neandertals were very robust, barrel-chested, and powerfully muscled. This robust skeletal structure, in fact, dominates hominin evolution from H. erectus through all premodern forms. Still, the Neandertals appear particularly robust, with shorter limbs than seen in most modern H. sapiens populations. Both the facial anatomy and the robust postcranial structure of Neandertals have been interpreted by Erik Trinkaus, of Washington University in St. Louis, as adaptations to rigorous living in a cold climate.
For about 100,000 years, Neandertals lived in Europe and western Asia , and their coming and going have raised more questions and controversies than for any other hominin group. As we’ve noted, Neandertal forebears are transitional forms dating to the later Middle Pleistocene. However, it’s not until the Late Pleistocene that Neandertals become fully recognizable.
Western Europe
One of the most important Neandertal discoveries was made in 1908 at La Chapelle-aux-Saints, in southwestern France. A nearly complete skeleton was found buried in a shallow grave in a flexed position . Several fragments of nonhuman long bones had been placed over the head, and over them, a bison leg. Around the body were flint tools and broken animal bones. The skeleton was turned over for study to a well-known French paleontologist, Marcellin Boule, who depicted the La Chapelle Neandertal as a brutish, bent-kneed, not fully erect biped. Because of this exaggerated interpretation, some scholars, and certainly the general public, concluded that all Neandertals were highly primitive creatures.
Why did Boule draw these conclusions from the La Chapelle skeleton? Today, we think he misjudged the Neandertal posture because this adult male skeleton had arthritis of the spine. Also, and probably more important, Boule and his contemporaries found it difficult to fully accept as a human ancestor an individual who appeared in any way to depart from the modern pattern. The skull of this male, who was possibly at least 40 years of age when he died, is very large, with a cranial capacity of 1,620 cm3 . Typical of western European classic forms, the vault is low and long; the browridges are immense, with the typical Neandertal arched shape; the forehead is low and retreating; and the face is long and projecting. The back of the skull is protuberant and bun-shaped.
The La Chapelle skeleton isn’t a typical Neandertal, but an unusually robust male who “evidently represents an extreme in the Neandertal range of variation” (Brace et al., 1979, p. 117). Unfortunately, his skeleton, which Boule claimed didn’t even walk completely erect, was widely accepted as “Mr. Neandertal.” But few other Neandertal individuals possess such exaggerated expression of Neandertal traits as the “Old Man of La Chapelle-aux-Saints.”
Dramatic new evidence of Neandertal behavior comes from the El Sidrón site in northern Spain. Dated to about 49,000 ya, fragmented remains of 12 individuals show bone changes indicating that they were smashed, butchered, and likely cannibalized—presumably by other Neandertals (Lalueza-Fox et al., 2011). Because the remains of all 12 individuals were found together in a cave where they had accidentally fallen, they all probably died (were killed) at about the same time. Lying there undisturbed for almost 50,000 years, these individuals reveal several secrets about Neandertals. First, they are hypothesized to all have belonged to the same social group, representing a band of hunter-gatherers. Their ages and sex support this interpretation: three adult males, three adult females, five children/adolescents, and one infant.
What’s more, genetic evidence shows that the adult males were all closely related, but the females weren’t. It seems that Neandertals practiced a patrilocal form of mating, where related males stay together and mate with females from other groups.
Central Europe
There are quite a few other European classic Neandertals, including significant finds from central Europe. At Krapina, Croatia, researchers have recovered an abundance of bones—1,000 fragments representing up to 70 individuals (Trinkaus and Shipman, 1992). Krapina is an old site, possibly the earliest showing the full suite of classic Neandertal morphology , dating back to the beginning of the Late Pleistocene (estimated at 130,000– 110,000 ya).
About 30 miles from Krapina, Neandertal fossils have also been discovered at Vindija. The site is an excellent source of faunal, cultural, and hominin materials stratified in sequence throughout much of the Late Pleistocene. Neandertal fossils from Vindija consist of some 35 specimens dated to between 2,000 and 32,000 ya, making them some of the most recent Neandertals ever discovered (Higham et al., 2006). Anatomically modern humans were living in both western and central Europe by about 35,000 ya or a bit earlier. So it’s possible that Neandertals and modern H. sapiens were living quite close to each other for several thousand years .
How did these two groups interact? Based on the evidence from French sites, such as St. Césaire and Grotte du Renne, it has long been argued that Neandertals borrowed technological methods and tools (such as blades) from the anatomically modern populations and thereby modified their own tools, creating a new industry, the Chatelperronian, which combines elements of both Middle and Upper Paleolithic technology. However, recent reanalyses of the stratigraphy, dating, and archaeological associations of these sites cast considerable doubt on this interpretation (Bar-Yosef and Bordes, 2010; Higham et al., 2010). It’s also possible, of course, that early modern H. sapiens borrowed cultural innovations from the Neandertals (who, as we’ll soon see, were in many ways quite sophisticated). What’s more, we know that the two groups were very likely interbreeding with each other!
Western Asia
Israel In addition to European Neandertals, many important discoveries have been made in southwest Asia. Neandertal specimens from Israel are less robustly built than the classic Neandertals of Europe, though again, the overall pattern is clearly Neandertal.
One of the best known of these discoveries is from Tabun . Tabun, excavated in the early 1930s, yielded a female skeleton, dated by thermoluminescence (TL) at about 120,000–110,000 ya . If this dating is accurate, Neandertals with early modern H. sapiens found in nearby caves. A more recent Neandertal burial of a large male comes from Kebara, a neighboring cave at Mt. Carmel. A partial skeleton, dated to 60,000 ya, contains the most complete Neandertal thorax and pelvis yet found. Also recovered at Kebara is a hyoid—a small bone located in the throat and the first ever found from a Neandertal; this bone is especially important because of its usefulness in reconstructing language capabilities.*
Iraq
A most remarkable site is Shanidar Cave, in the Zagros Mountains of northeastern Iraq, where fieldworkers found partial skeletons of nine individuals, four of them deliberately buried. One of the more interesting skeletons recovered from Shanidar is that of a male (Shanidar 1) who lived to be approximately 30 to 45 years old, a considerable age for a prehistoric human ). He is estimated to have stood 5 feet 7 inches tall, with a cranial capacity of 1,600 cm3 . The skeletal remains of Shanidar 1 also exhibit several other fascinating features: There had been a crushing blow to the left side of the head, fracturing the eye socket, displacing the left eye, and probably causing blindness on that side. He also sustained a massive blow to the right side of the body that so badly damaged the right arm that it became withered and useless; the bones of the shoulder blade, collar bone, and upper arm are much smaller and thinner than those on the left. The right lower arm and hand are missing, probably not because of poor preservation . . . but because they either atrophied and dropped off or because they were amputated. (Trinkaus and Shipman, 1992, p. 340) Besides these injuries, the man had further trauma to both legs, and he probably limped. It’s hard to imagine how he could have performed day-today activities without assistance. This is why Erik Trinkaus, who has studied the Shanidar remains, suggests that to survive, Shanidar 1 must have been helped by others: “A one-armed, partially blind, crippled man could have made no pretense of hunting or gathering his own food. That he survived for years after his trauma was a testament to Neandertal compassion and humanity” (Trinkaus and Shipman, 1992, p. 341).
Central Asia
Neandertals extended their range even farther to the east, far into central Asia. A discovery made in the 1930s at the site of Teshik-Tash, in Uzbekistan, of a Neandertal child associated with tools of the Mousterian industry suggested that this species had dispersed a long way into Asia. However, owing to poor archaeological control during excavation and the young age of the individual, the find was not considered by all paleoanthropologists as clearly that of a Neandertal. New finds and molecular evaluation have provided crucial evidence that Neandertals did in fact extend their geographical range far into central Asia and perhaps even farther east. DNA analysis of the Teshik-Tash remains shows that they are clearly Neandertal. What’s more, other fragments from southern Siberia also show a distinctively Neandertal genetic pattern (Krause et al., 2007a). As we’ll see shortly, researchers have recently been able to identify and analyze DNA from several Neandertal specimens. It’s been shown that Neandertals and modern humans differ in both their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and nuclear DNA, and these results are extremely significant in determining the evolutionary status of the Neandertal lineage. Moreover, in the case of the fragmentary remains from southern Siberia (dating to 44,000–37,000 ya), it was the DNA findings that provided the key evidence in determining whether the hominin is even a Neandertal. In a sense, this is analogous to doing forensic analysis on our ancient hominin predecessors
Surprising Connections: Another Contemporary Hominin?
In 2000 and 2008, researchers found fragmentary hominin remains in another cave in the Altai Mountains of southern Siberia. Only a finger bone and one tooth were found in Denisova Cave, and they are dated to 50,000–30,000 ya. From such incomplete skeletal remains, accurate anatomical species identification is impossible. In prior years, this seemingly meager find would have been stashed away in a cabinet in a museum or university laboratory and mostly forgotten. But in the twenty-first century, we have new ways to study bits and pieces of ancient hominins. So the finger bone was sent to the Max- Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Germany to see if DNA analysis could determine to which species it belongs. Mitochondrial DNA analysis was performed on the finger bone and provided a big surprise: The mtDNA did not match that of either modern H. sapiens or a Neandertal . What’s more, the degree of genetic distance suggested to the researchers that the hominin line of this “new” hominin diverged from the modern H. sapiens/Neandertal line almost 1 million years ago (Krause et al., 2010).
These results suggest that the hominins from Denisova Cave were a completely new species, different from modern humans or Neandertals. Lying in a cool, dry, stable environment inside the cave, the Denisova remains stood a good chance of preserving even more complete ancient DNA. So, the Max Planck team, along with many colleagues from around the world, decided to attempt to sequence the nuclear genome derived from DNA in the finger bone (in which DNA preservation was exceptionally good). Within less than two years, they successfully sequenced the entire genome from this one small bone—more than 3 billion base pairs—a truly amazing scientific accomplishment (Reich et al., 2010). These far more complete data confirmed the earlier findings, most notably that the “Denisovans” were a separate branch of hominins living side by side in central Asia with two other lineages of hominins (Neandertals and modern humans). The complete genome also provided another big surprise regarding how these ancient Denisovans are genetically connected to some living human populations