Human evolution: a new hominin ancestor in Israel (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, June 24, 2021, 19:54 (1248 days ago) @ David Turell

A probable Neanderthal ancestor:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2282141-newly-identified-ancestor-of-neanderthals-...

"A previously unknown group of ancient humans lived in what is now Israel for hundreds of thousands of years. They lived alongside modern humans for some of that time, and the two groups may have interacted and learned skills from each other.

"The newly discovered people were the ancestors of the Neanderthals, who later roamed Europe and western Asia, argues the team behind the work. If that is true, Neanderthals originated in western Asia, not in Europe as many researchers have previously suspected.

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"The team found parts of the roof of a hominin skull and a near-complete jawbone. “We believe it’s of the same individual,” says Hila May, also at Tel Aviv University, another author of the work.

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"The sediments in which the bones were found are between 140,000 and 120,000 years old. Our species had emerged in Africa by this time, and made some forays outside: Homo sapiens specimens from 210,000 years ago have been found in Greece, and a seemingly more sustained population existed in the Israel region from at least 177,000 years ago. But H. sapiens wasn’t the only hominin: Europe and western Asia were home to the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), while eastern Asia was home to a related group called the Denisovans.

"To find out if the Nesher Ramla hominin belonged to one of these groups, the team compared the shapes of the bones with those of dozens of other hominin remains. “It was easy to say that it’s not Homo sapiens,” says May. The skull was low and flat, rather than rounded and tall, and the jawbone lacked the chin that is characteristic of our species.

"But it didn’t fit any of the other groups either. In some ways, the bones resembled Neanderthal ones, but in others they looked like those of hominins that lived earlier in prehistory.

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"The team argues that all these bones should be considered together as a new hominin group, which lived in western Asia between 420,000 and 120,000 years ago. The hominin at Nesher Ramla was “a residue or survivor of this source population”, argues Sarig.

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"A Neanderthal who lived in northern Europe 124,000 years ago had some H. sapiens DNA, around 80,000 years before modern humans got there. This could be explained if modern humans interbred with Nesher Ramla Homo in western Asia and some of the resulting hybrids interbred with European Neanderthals.

"The Nesher Ramla Homo may also explain other unusual fossils. The bones from the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel have sometimes been classed as H. sapiens, but don’t look typical of our species. The team suggests they are actually the result of interbreeding between H. sapiens and Nesher Ramla Homo."

Comment: All a morphological discussion which can be deciphered if DNA can be analyzed in the future. May not enlarge the hominin bush. Another article with great pictures of the findings:

https://phys.org/news/2021-06-nesher-ramla-homo-fossil-discovery.html