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Hi Gerry... Check out the part about Neanderthals being in northern europe
200,000 years or more?
Modern humans who first arose in Africa moved into Europe as early as
about 45,000 years ago, a new study indicates.
The evidence consists of stone, bone and ivory tools found under a
layer of ancient volcanic ash some 250 miles south of Moscow, said John
Hoffecker of the University of Colorado at Boulder.
An assemblage of bone and ivory artifacts from the lowest layer
at Kostenki that includes a perforated shell, a probable small
human figurine (three views, top center) and several assorted awls,
mattocks and bone points dating to about 45,000 years ago. (Courtesy
CU-Boulder)
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"The big surprise here is the very early presence of modern humans in
one of the coldest, driest places in Europe," Hoffecker added. It's "one
of the last places we would have expected people from Africa to occupy
first."
The site yielded the earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe:
perforated shell ornaments and a carved piece of mammoth ivory, he
said.
The latter, found five years ago, seems to be the head of a small human
figurine-broken and perhaps never finished by its maker more than
40,000 years ago, said Hoffecker. "If confirmed, it will be the oldest
example of figurative art ever discovered."
Hoffecker and colleagues at the Russian Academy of Sciences detail
the findings in the Jan. 12 issue of the research journal Science.
The researchers led a dig at Kostenki, a group of more than 20 sites
along the Don River in Russia that have been studied for decades.
Kostenki previously yielded anatomically modern human bones and
artifacts between 30,000 and 40,000 years old, they said. These
included the oldest firmly dated bone and ivory needles with
eyelets, indicating the inhabitants were tailoring furs to survive
the cold.
"The artifacts are unmistakably the work of modern humans,"
Hoffecker said, adding that his team dated the overlying sediment by
several methods.
Anatomically modern humans are thought to have arisen in sub-Saharan
Africa around 200,000 years ago.
Kostenki also contains evidence that modern humans were rapidly
broadening their diet to include small mammals and freshwater foods,
an indication they were "remaking themselves technologically,"
Hoffecker said. They may have used traps and snares to catch hares and
arctic foxes, exploiting large areas fairly easily, he added: "they
probably set out their nets and traps and went home for lunch."
Modern humans may have first entered this part of Europe because
competitors such as Neanderthals were absent here, Hoffecker
suggested. "The Neanderthals, who had occupied Europe for more than
200,000 years, seem to have left the back door open for modern humans."
Except for some early sites in the Near East, the oldest evidence of
modern humans outside Africa comes from Australia roughly 50,000
years ago, said Hoffecker.
In the same issue of Science, researchers led by Frederick E. Grine of
the State University of New York at Stony Brook presented what they
called the first fossil evidence that modern humans left sub-Saharan
Africa for Eurasia between 65,000 and 25,000 years ago. Some
scientists had argued that this occurred a few tens of thousands of
years earlier.
The evidence consisted of a South African skull, dated as about 36,000
years old and closely resembling those of humans then living in Europe
and far eastern Asia. These populations thus "shared a very recent
common ancestor," wrote Ted Goebel of Texas A&M University in a
commentary in the journal. He wrote that modern humans likely first
migrated out along the South Asian coast and into Australia, and only
later into harsher northern zones such as Kostenki.
chao/Silk
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