Levantine cranium from Manot Cave (Israel) foreshadows the first European modern humans

Hershkovitz, Israel; Marder, Ofer; Ayalon, Avner; Bar‐Matthews, Miryam; Yasur, Gal; Boaretto, Elisabetta; Caracuta, Valentina; Alex, Bridget; Frumkin, Amos; Goder‐Goldberger, Mae; Gunz, Philipp; Holloway, Ralph L.; Latimer, Bruce; Lavi, Ron; Matthews, Alan; Slon, Viviane; Mayer, Daniella Bar Yosef; Berna, Francesco; Bar-Oz, Guy; Yeshurun, Reuven; May, Hila; Hans, Mark G.; Weber, Gerhard; Barzilai, Omry

doi:10.1038/nature14134

Cited by 195 publications

(106 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…This migration scenario implies the signal of the same bottleneck would be present in all non-African populations, which has been observed thus far in coalescent analysis of contemporary nonAfrican populations (Gronau et al 2011;Fu et al 2014;Schiffels and Durbin 2014) and for an anatomically modern human who lived 45,000 yr ago (Fu et al 2014). This is also consistent with the recent discovery of another anatomically modern human who lived 55,000 yr ago just northeast of the Arabian Peninsula that had morphological features similar to European peoples (Hershkovitz et al 2015), where this individual could have been a descendant of the basal Eurasian population that remained on the peninsula. Under this migration scenario, although other waves of migration may have occurred, the descendants of these alternative waves either left no descendants or were integrated into the dominant populations.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…Given the current evidence of the geographic range of Neanderthal populations stretching from Europe and the Mediterranean through Northern and Central Asia (Fu et al 2014;Hershkovitz et al 2015), the lower Neanderthal Ancestry in the Q1 (Bedouin) Qatari compared to populations within the ancestral Neanderthal range is also consistent with an early divergence of the ancestors of indigenous Arabs from other lineages that populated Asia and Europe. Yet, since the Neanderthal admixture in the Q1 (Bedouin) cannot be entirely explained by admixture with Europeans, this indicates there was some admixture between Neanderthals and ancestors of the Q1 (Bedouin) in the region of the Arabian Peninsula.…”

Section: Neanderthal Ancestrymentioning

confidence: 87%

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Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations

et al. 2016

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An open question in the history of human migration is the identity of the earliest Eurasian populations that have left contemporary descendants. The Arabian Peninsula was the initial site of the out-of-Africa migrations that occurred between 125,000 and 60,000 yr ago, leading to the hypothesis that the first Eurasian populations were established on the Peninsula and that contemporary indigenous Arabs are direct descendants of these ancient peoples. To assess this hypothesis, we sequenced the entire genomes of 104 unrelated natives of the Arabian Peninsula at high coverage, including 56 of indigenous Arab ancestry. The indigenous Arab genomes defined a cluster distinct from other ancestral groups, and these genomes showed clear hallmarks of an ancient out-of-Africa bottleneck. Similar to other Middle Eastern populations, the indigenous Arabs had higher levels of Neanderthal admixture compared to Africans but had lower levels than Europeans and Asians. These levels of Neanderthal admixture are consistent with an early divergence of Arab ancestors after the out-of-Africa bottleneck but before the major Neanderthal admixture events in Europe and other regions of Eurasia. When compared to worldwide populations sampled in the 1000 Genomes Project, although the indigenous Arabs had a signal of admixture with Europeans, they clustered in a basal, outgroup position to all 1000 Genomes non-Africans when considering pairwise similarity across the entire genome. These results place indigenous Arabs as the most distant relatives of all other contemporary non-Africans and identify these people as direct descendants of the first Eurasian populations established by the out-of-Africa migrations.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Neanderthal Ancestrymentioning

confidence: 87%

Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations

et al. 2016

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“…It cannot be calibrated as it falls beyond the limits of the current calibration curve. The IUP lithics share features with Ksâr 'Akil IUP Layers XXV-XXI, but the unit also contains abundant EUP and scattered MP artifacts (8). Age calibration of conventional radiocarbon dates on charcoal suggests that the IUP at Boker Tachtit (Layers 1-4) dates to at least 50,000-40,000 cal B.P.…”

Section: Chronology In a Regional Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The interpretation of this scant record is affected by imprecise chronologies, and in some cases, by problematic stratigraphies or lack of contextual data (2,(8)(9)(10). The recently discovered fossil at Manot (Israel) places AMH in the Levant as early as 60,200-49,200 y ago (8). However, because the fossil was found on a natural shelf unconnected with the otherwise rich archeological deposits elsewhere in the cave, its affiliation to an archeological technocomplex is unclear.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The modern human fossil record for this time period is limited to only a few remains, including those found at Ksâr 'Akil (7) and Manot Cave (8) in the eastern Mediterranean region of southwestern Asia and Peştera cu Oase in Romania (2) (SI Appendix, Section 3). The interpretation of this scant record is affected by imprecise chronologies, and in some cases, by problematic stratigraphies or lack of contextual data (2,(8)(9)(10). The recently discovered fossil at Manot (Israel) places AMH in the Levant as early as 60,200-49,200 y ago (8).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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New chronology for Ksâr ‘Akil (Lebanon) supports Levantine route of modern human dispersal into Europe

Bosch

Mannino

Prendergast

et al. 2015

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Modern human dispersal into Europe is thought to have occurred with the start of the Upper Paleolithic around 50,000–40,000 y ago. The Levantine corridor hypothesis suggests that modern humans from Africa spread into Europe via the Levant. Ksâr ‘Akil (Lebanon), with its deeply stratified Initial (IUP) and Early (EUP) Upper Paleolithic sequence containing modern human remains, has played an important part in the debate. The latest chronology for the site, based on AMS radiocarbon dates of shell ornaments, suggests that the appearance of the Levantine IUP is later than the start of the first Upper Paleolithic in Europe, thus questioning the Levantine corridor hypothesis. Here we report a series of AMS radiocarbon dates on the marine gastropod Phorcus turbinatus associated with modern human remains and IUP and EUP stone tools from Ksâr ‘Akil. Our results, supported by an evaluation of individual sample integrity, place the EUP layer containing the skeleton known as “Egbert” between 43,200 and 42,900 cal B.P. and the IUP-associated modern human maxilla known as “Ethelruda” before ∼45,900 cal B.P. This chronology is in line with those of other Levantine IUP and EUP sites and demonstrates that the presence of modern humans associated with Upper Paleolithic toolkits in the Levant predates all modern human fossils from Europe. The age of the IUP-associated Ethelruda fossil is significant for the spread of modern humans carrying the IUP into Europe and suggests a rapid initial colonization of Europe by our species.

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Levantine fossil record

Hershkovitz

Slon

2018

The International Encyclopedia of Biological Anthropology

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Throughout human evolution, the Levant has served as the major land corridor for hominins migrating from Africa. Although human fossils have been discovered in many parts of the Old World, few geographical areas are as important to advancing our understanding of human evolution as the Levant. The current chapter describes the major fossils that have been discovered in the Levant from the Lower Pleistocene to the beginning of the Holocene; and it presents some of the major questions associated with them.

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Levantine cranium from Manot Cave (Israel) foreshadows the first European modern humans

Abstract: A few Republicans agreeing with basic climate research is not an environmental victory.

Cited by 195 publications

References 30 publications

Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations

Indigenous Arabs are descendants of the earliest split from ancient Eurasian populations

New chronology for Ksâr ‘Akil (Lebanon) supports Levantine route of modern human dispersal into Europe

Levantine fossil record

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