Romania: Cave Fossils indicate Humans and Neanderthals may have interbred

Photos

Romania: Cave Fossils indicate Humans and Neanderthals may have interbred

see larger image

uploaded by jorolat

From CBC News, Canada: There may be a little Neanderthal in all of us.

That's the conclusion of anthropologists who have re-examined 30,000-year-old fossilized bones from a Romanian cave - bones that languished in a drawer since the 1950s*.

According to the researchers, these early Homo sapien bones show anatomical features that could only have arisen if the adult female in question had Neanderthal ancestors as part of her lineage.

The findings may answer nagging questions: Did modern humans and Neanderthals interbreed on a significant scale? And were the Neanderthals exterminated about 28,000 years ago - as some anthropologists contend - or did they gradually assimilate into the gene pool of people living today?

"From my perspective, the replacement vs. continuity debate that raged through the 1990s is now dead," said the study's American co-author, Erik Trinkaus (homepage), a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.

* The human bones were first identified at the Pestera Muierii (Cave of the Old Woman) cave in 1952. [Neandertal, Neandertals, Fossil, Fossils, Sapiens]

Continued at "Modern Humans, Neanderthals May Have Interbred" -------

Based on the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) paper: NOT YET AVAILABLE - a link will be provided as soon as it appears online (in the meantime, read Trinkaus' "An early modern human from the Pestera cu Oase, Romania"

Featured Book: "Neanderthals Revisited: New Approaches and Perspectives (Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology)" (Amazon UK | US)

Books on Neanderthals from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

Books on Human Origins from the Science and Evolution Bookshop: UK | US

News Report also covered by Kazinform (Kazakhstan)

John Latter / Jorolat
Evolution Research:
http://evomech3.blogspot.com/
Science and Evolution Bookshop:
http://evomech5.blogspot.com/