Human evolution; earliest sapiens in Europe (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, May 11, 2020, 19:55 (1439 days ago) @ David Turell

Dated at 44-46,000 years ago:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earliest-known-humans-europe-bacho-kiro-bulgaria

"A tooth and six bone fragments found in a Bulgarian cave are the oldest directly dated remains of Homo sapiens in Europe, scientists say.

"Until now, most of the earliest fossils of humans on the continent ranged in age from around 45,000 to 41,500 years old. But those ages are based on dates for sediment and artifacts associated with the fossils, not the fossils themselves. The newfound remains date to between roughly 46,000 and 44,000 years ago, researchers report May 11 in Nature.

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"The new discoveries at Bulgaria’s Bacho Kiro Cave have added evidence for a scenario in which African H. sapiens reached the Middle East approximately 50,000 years ago (SN: 1/28/15) and then rapidly dispersed into Europe (SN: 11/2/11) and Central Asia (SN: 10/22/14), the scientists conclude.

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"What’s more, stone artifacts and personal ornaments found with the human fossils are the earliest examples of a shift in tool and ornament making from what’s known as the Initial Upper Paleolithic culture, Hublin and colleagues say. Along with several earlier European excavations, the new finds indicate that Initial Upper Paleolithic tools were made for only a few thousand years before being replaced by related implements from the Aurignacian culture, which dates to between 43,000 and 33,000 years ago (SN: 3/23/15).

"The newfound stone tools and pendants made from cave bear teeth appear to have inspired similar objects made a few thousand years later by western European Neandertals, Hublin says, suggesting that ancient humans in Bulgaria mingled with native Neandertals. “The Bacho Kiro cave provides evidence that pioneer groups of Homo sapiens brought new behaviors into Europe and interacted with local Neandertals,” Hublin says.

"Although that’s possible, Neandertals made jewelry out of eagle talons around 130,000 years ago (SN: 3/20/15). That’s long before when H. sapiens are generally thought to have first reached Europe, and thus Neandertals may not have been influenced by the newcomers’ ornaments, says paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, who did not participate in the new studies.

"Human groups that brought Initial Upper Paleolithic toolmaking to Europe may have been too small to stay or survive for long when confronted with larger numbers of Neandertals and frequent climate fluctuations at the time, Stringer suspects. For as yet unclear reasons, it was the Aurignacian toolmakers who first took root in Europe and witnessed “a physical but not genetic end” to Neandertals, some of whose DNA survived in H. sapiens as a result of previous interbreeding, he says (SN: 5/11/15)."

Comment: Erectus moved call over the world. At some point sapiens had to do the same.