The bones of an early human, unknown to science, who lived in the Levant at least until 130,000 years ago, were discovered in excavations at the Nesher Ramla site, near the city of Ramla.
From: Tel-Aviv University
June 24, 2021 -- Recognizing similarity
to other archaic Homo specimens from 400,000 years ago, found in Israel and
Eurasia, the researchers reached the conclusion that the Nesher Ramla fossils
represent a unique Middle Pleistocene population, now identified for the first time.
Researchers from Tel Aviv University and
the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a new type of early human at
the Nesher Ramla site, dated to 140,000 to 120,000 years ago. According to the
researchers, the morphology of the Nesher Ramla humans shares features with
both Neanderthals (especially the teeth and jaws) and archaic Homo
(specifically the skull). At the same time, this type of Homo is very unlike
modern humans -- displaying a completely different skull structure, no chin,
and very large teeth. Following the study's findings, researchers believe that
the Nesher Ramla Homo type is the 'source' population from which most humans of
the Middle Pleistocene developed. In addition, they suggest that this group is
the so-called 'missing' population that mated with Homo sapiens who
arrived in the region around 200,000 years ago -- about whom we know from a
recent study on fossils found in the Misliya cave.
Two teams of researchers took part in
the dramatic discovery, published in the journal Science: an
anthropology team from Tel Aviv University headed by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz,
Dr. Hila May and Dr. Rachel Sarig from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the
Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research and the Shmunis
Family Anthropology Institute, situated in the Steinhardt Museum at Tel Aviv
University; and an archaeological team headed by Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Institute
of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Timeline: The Nesher Ramla Homo type was
an ancestor of both the Neanderthals in Europe and the archaic Homo populations
of Asia.
Prof. Israel Hershkovitz: "The
discovery of a new type of Homo" is of great scientific importance. It
enables us to make new sense of previously found human fossils, add another
piece to the puzzle of human evolution, and understand the migrations of humans
in the old world. Even though they lived so long ago, in the late middle
Pleistocene (474,000-130,000 years ago), the Nesher Ramla people can tell us a
fascinating tale, revealing a great deal about their descendants' evolution and
way of life."
The important human fossil was found by
Dr. Zaidner of the Hebrew University during salvage excavations at the Nesher
Ramla prehistoric site, in the mining area of the Nesher cement plant (owned by
Len Blavatnik) near the city of Ramla. Digging down about 8 meters, the
excavators found large quantities of animal bones, including horses, fallow
deer and aurochs, as well as stone tools and human bones. An international team
led by the researchers from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem identified the morphology of
the bones as belonging to a new type of Homo, previously unknown to science. This
is the first type of Homo to be defined in Israel, and according to common
practice, it was named after the site where it was discovered -- the Nesher
Ramla Homo type.
Dr. Yossi Zaidner: "This is an
extraordinary discovery. We had never imagined that alongside Homo
sapiens, archaic Homo roamed the area so late in human history. The
archaeological finds associated with human fossils show that "Nesher Ramla
Homo" possessed advanced stone-tool production technologies and most
likely interacted with the local Homo sapiens." The culture,
way of life, and behavior of the Nesher Ramla Homo are discussed in a companion
paper also published in Science journal today.
Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the
discovery of the Nesher Ramla Homo type challenges the prevailing hypothesis
that the Neanderthals originated in Europe. "Before these new
findings," he says, "most researchers believed the Neanderthals to be
a 'European story', in which small groups of Neanderthals were forced to
migrate southwards to escape the spreading glaciers, with some arriving in the
Land of Israel about 70,000 years ago. The Nesher Ramla fossils make us
question this theory, suggesting that the ancestors of European Neanderthals
lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago, repeatedly migrating
westward to Europe and eastward to Asia. In fact, our findings imply that the
famous Neanderthals of Western Europe are only the remnants of a much larger
population that lived here in the Levant -- and not the other way around."
According to Dr. Hila May, despite the
absence of DNA in these fossils, the findings from Nesher Ramla offer a
solution to a great mystery in the evolution of Homo: How did genes of Homo
sapiens penetrate the Neanderthal population that presumably lived in
Europe long before the arrival of Homo sapiens? Geneticists who
studied the DNA of European Neanderthals have previously suggested the
existence of a Neanderthal-like population which they called the 'missing
population' or the 'X population' that had mated with Homo sapiens more
than 200,000 years ago. In the anthropological paper now published in Science,
the researchers suggest that the Nesher Ramla Homo type might represent this
population, heretofore missing from the record of human fossils. Moreover, the
researchers propose that the humans from Nesher Ramla are not the only ones of
their kind discovered in the region, and that some human fossils found
previously in Israel, which have baffled anthropologists for years -- like the
fossils from the Tabun cave (160,000 years ago), Zuttiyeh cave (250,000), and
Qesem cave (400,000) -- belong to the same new human group now called the
Nesher Ramla Homo type.
"People think in paradigms,"
says Dr. Rachel Sarig. "That's why efforts have been made to ascribe these
fossils to known human groups like Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo
heidelbergensis or the Neanderthals. But now we say: No. This is a group in
itself, with distinct features and characteristics. At a later stage small
groups of the Nesher Ramla Homo type migrated to Europe -- where they evolved
into the 'classic' Neanderthals that we are familiar with, and also to Asia,
where they became archaic populations with Neanderthal-like features. As a
crossroads between Africa, Europe and Asia, the Land of Israel served as a
melting pot where different human populations mixed with one another, to later
spread throughout the Old World. The discovery from the Nesher Ramla site
writes a new and fascinating chapter in the story of humankind."
Prof. Gerhard Weber, an associate from
Vienna University, argues that the story of Neanderthal evolution will be told
differently after this discovery: "Europe was not the exclusive refugium
of Neanderthals from where they occasionally diffused into West Asia. We think
that there was much more lateral exchange in Eurasia, and that the Levant is
geographically a crucial starting point, or at a least bridgehead, for this
process."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210624141540.htm
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