Oldest European human fossils
A male adult jawbone found in a bear cave in the Carpathian Mountains (Romania) has been dated to between 34,000 and 36,000 years old. The fossil belongs to one of three individuals, all thought to be of similar age, who lived at the time when modern humans shared the continent with Neanderthals, their now extinct hominid cousins. And researchers reporting the discoveries have suggested that the fossils show a degree of hybridisation – interbreeding between homo sapiens and Neanderthals.
The finding is likely to add fuel the long standing debate on whether there was any mixing of species. Those arguing against hybridisation point to DNA studies that show that Neanderthals contributed little or nothing to the genes of humans living today. Some molecular studies have seemed to indicate that our last common ancestor existed before Neanderthals appeared, refuting any possibility of cross-species breeding. “The problem with this whole debate is that we have so few specimens in Europe – it’s hard to make a hard and fast case,” says Professor Clive Gamble of the UK’s Centre of the Archaeology of Human Origins. “The genetic studies are quite convincing but we need more information and that makes these new fossils very interesting. I’m sure that what we deal with eventually is going to be a more wonderful mosaic.”
The Romanian finds are detailed by Professor Erik Trinkhaus and colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and the Journal of Human Evolution. The fossils, while undeniably modern, display very primitive features, such as large molars. The lower jawbone and upper jaw have the same pattern in the cheek teeth, with the wisdom teeth “simply huge”. “They are bigger than just about anything else we have found from the last 200,000 years,” says Professor Trinkhaus.
Currently the most popular model for the emergence of homo sapiens places their origin in Africa within the last 200,000 years. From here they swept across the world to displace other hominid species, including Neanderthals. Commenting on the Romanian finds, Mary Tileston Hemenway, Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St. Louis, USA, said: “The best explanation I can offer is that when modern humans spread out of Africa they interbred with local populations of archaic humans. It shows us that the earliest ‘modern Europeans’ were considerable less modern than we normally consider them to be, and that significant human evolution in details of anatomy has taken place since they became established across Eurasia”.
The fossils were originally discovered in February 2002 in Pestera cu Oase (Cave with Bones) by three Romanian cavers. Professor Trinkhaus speculates that the site may have been used as a mortuary for the ritual disposal of bodies. The previous oldest modern human remains on Europe are dated to around 30,000 years ago. The oldest ever modern human remains were found at Herto in Ethiopia in June of this year and are estimated to be about 160,000 years old.
Source: BBC News (22 September 2003)
Earliest British Cemetery
Aveline’s Hole, a cave near Burrington Combe in the Mendip Hills (England), has been scientifically dated as the earliest known cemetery in Britain. Radiocarbon dating of bone fragments originally removed from the cave in the early years of the 20th Century has confirmed a dating between 10,200 and 10,400 years old. Dr. David Miles, Chief Archaeologist of English Heritage which commissioned the dating, said: “The dates show that some people in Britain were burying their dead in a cemetery in the Early Mesolithic period, 4,000 years earlier than had been previously thought. Although late Mesolithic cemeteries have been found on the continent, none have been recognised over here”. The age of the specimens means that Aveline’s Hole was of international significance and would revise ideas about society during the Mesolithic.
A sealed cave with 70 – 100 skeletons was first recorded in 1797. In 1914, when the University of Bristol Spelaeological Society began excavations, remains from only 21 individuals were found. Early reports were of a ‘ceremonial burial’ with a skeleton on a disused hearth, together with red ocre, animal teeth (some perforated for use in ornamentation) and fossil ammonites. The specimens were displayed in the UBSS museum but most of the collection and the excavation records were destroyed by bombing in 1940. The new radiocarbon measurements were part of a comprehensive re-analysis of the remaining specimens by a team headed by Dr. Rick Schulting of Queen’s University, Belfast.
“We know very little about Mesolithic society as so few remains have been found that supply sufficient information. Aveline’s Hole is giving us the opportunity to reconstruct something of the diet, health and life-style of these enigmatic people,” says Dr. Schulting. Strontium levels show that the people came from close by. Tests have also produced evidence of malnutrition. Adults in the group, which also included young children and two infants, were only about five feet tall and slightly built. Molar wear indicates a short lifespan, with none of the extreme wear expected from elderly hunter-gatherers. There are signs of osteoarthritis in one elbow, and lines in teeth indicate periods of poor nutrition or chronic illness in childhood. There is little evidence of fish in their diet, even fresh water varieties.
The burial dates to the time when Britain was emerging from the last Ice Age and the world’s oceans were rising. Even so it is thought that there was still a land bridge between Britain and France and that it would have been possible for local people to have walked across what is now the Bristol Channel to Wales.
(Editor’s note: Burrington Combe is the valley immediately north of Cheddar Gorge. In 1903 Cheddar Man, the oldest complete skeleton ever found in Britain (circa 7150 BCe) was discovered in Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge. In 1997, mitochondrial DNA tests revealed that a descendant of Cheddar Man (a history teacher!) still lived in the village of Cheddar, less than a mile from Gough’s Cave.)
Source: BBC News (23 September 2003)
4,000-year-old pottery shards in S. Carolina
Shards which may date back to 2000 BCe have been unearthed by a preliminary dig on a city-owned site in Beaufort, South Carolina (USA). Now archaeologists are hoping that the small collection of pottery fragments, found on a 1.27 acre plot on Joyner Street, may open the way to further investigation and provide information on habitation in the Woodland Period, between 2000 BCe and 900 AD. Archaeologist Daphne Owen Battle says: “I don’t think it’s going to be a site where somebody lived for a long time. [But for the site] to have remained intact in the middle of a subdivision is very phenomenal”.
Battle, of Beaufort-based Cypress Cultural Consultants, conducted the survey under the Beaufort Unified Development Ordinance at the request of the city planning department after a decision to sell the Joyner Street plot for development. Now Battle’s work is being reviewed by Valerie Marcil, a staff archaeologist with the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, who is expected to make recommendations to the city before the site is sold or altered. Marcil helps determine whether archaeological sites are eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historical Places. Impressed with the recent findings, Marcil said: “The site could have very good information about the people who lived there and what they were doing.” While not expecting further excavations to reveal any substantial artefacts, Marcil has pointed out that pottery shards can tell their own story to professional investigators.
There are 23,500 state-registered sites in South Carolina. Beaufort County is amongst the most progressive in South Carolina, according to Keith Derting, archaeological site file manager for the SC Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, with more than 2,000 known archaeological sites – the first county to pass this milestone.
Battle’s survey also includes a site at Boundary Street, which was identified as the location of a Civil War fortification called Battery Saxton.
Source: BeaufortGazette.com (22 September 2003)
