The First Anatomically Modern Humans from South-Eastern Europe. Contributions from the Buran-Kaya III Site (Crimea)

Abstract

The arrival of modern humans into Europe, their dispersal and their potential interactions with Neanderthals are still in debate. Whereas the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in Western Europe seems to be well understood, the situation is quite different for Eastern Europe, where data are more scarce. The Buran-Kaya III site in Crimea is of key importance to understand the colonization of Europe by anatomically modern humans and their potential contemporaneity with the last Neanderthal occupations. The new radiocarbon dated sequence shows that no Neanderthal settlement existed after 39 ka cal BP and casts doubt on the survival, as previously proposed, of Neanderthal refuge zones in Crimea 28 ka BP ago (34-32 ka cal BP). The human remains from Buran-Kaya III, directly dated to 32450 +250/-230 BP (layer 6-2) and 31900+/-220 BP (layer 6-1) (37.1-35.7 ka cal BP and 36.3-35.2 cal BP respectively), represent some of the oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans in Europe in a unique welldocumented archaeological context (Gravettian). Furthermore, the specimens from layer 6-1 represent the oldest Upper Palaeolithic modern humans from Eastern Europe with evidence of post-mortem treatment of the dead.

Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea

“…Discovered in 1990, the rock shelter site of Buran-Kaya III in the Crimean Peninsula contains rich deposits of human activity dating from the Middle Paleolithic until the Middle Ages [16][17][18][19] .…”

“…The assemblages of layers 6-2 to 5-2, dated to ca. 38-34,000 cal BP 17,19 , have yielded backed microliths, microgravette points, bone tools, ochre, and body ornaments of ivory, shell, and teeth, as well as multiple human skull fragments, some with post-mortem cut marks 17 . The similarity of the cultural deposits to later Gravettian assemblages of Europe have led the excavating archeologists to assign this material to the earliest appearance of a Gravettian cultural layer, a designation that has recently been challenged on the basis of the considerable gap of time and geography between these artefacts and those appearing 5,000 years later in Gravettian sites of central Europe [20][21][22][23] .…”