PICTURE: .Static skull & mandible & parietal orthographic. view More
Photo credit: Tel Aviv University
- The discovery of a new homosexual group in this region that resembles pre-Neanderthal populations in Europe challenges the prevailing hypothesis that Neanderthals originated in Europe, suggesting that at least some of the Neanderthals’ ancestors were indeed from the Levant come.
- The new finding suggests that two types of gay groups in the Levant lived side by side for more than 100,000 years (200-100,000 years ago), sharing knowledge and tool technologies: the Nesher Ramla, who lived in the region about 400,000 years ago lived, and Homo sapiens, who later arrived about 200,000 years ago.
- The new discovery also provides clues to a mystery of human evolution: How did Homo sapiens genes penetrate the Neanderthal population, which presumably lived long before the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe?
- The researchers claim that at least some of the later homo fossils previously found in Israel, such as those unearthed in the caves of Skhul and Qafzeh, do not belong to the archaic (early) Homo sapiens, but rather to groups of mixed Homo sapiens- and Nesher Ramla Lines.
Nesher Ramla homo-type – a prehistoric man who was previously unknown to science: Researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified a new type of early man at the site of Nesher Ramla, which has been dated between 140,000 and 120,000 years ago. According to the researchers, the morphology of the Nesher Ramla people shares traits with both Neanderthals (especially the teeth and jaws) and archaic homos (especially the skull). At the same time, this type of homo is very unlike modern humans – it shows a completely different skull structure, no chin and very large teeth. According to the results of the study, the researchers believe that the Nesher Ramla homo-type is the “original population” from which most of the mid-Pleistocene humans evolved. In addition, they suspect that this group is the so-called “missing” population that mated with Homo sapiens, who came to the region about 200,000 years ago – about which we learned from a recent study of fossils in the Misliya Cave know.
Two research teams were involved in the dramatic discovery, which was published in the renowned journal Science: an anthropology team from Tel Aviv University led by Prof. Israel Hershkovitz, Dr. Hila May and Dr. Rachel Sarig of Sackler Medical Faculty and the Dan David Center for Human Evolution and Biohistory Research and the Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute at the Steinhardt Museum, Tel Aviv University; and an archaeological team led by Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Institute of Archeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Timeline: The Nesher Ramla homo-type was an ancestor of both Neanderthals in Europe and the archaic homo populations of Asia.
Prof. Israel Hershkovitz: “The discovery of a new homo-type” is of great scientific importance. It enables us to give new meaning to previously found human fossils, add another piece to the puzzle of human evolution, and understand the migrations of humans in the ancient world. Although they lived so long ago, in the late Middle Pleistocene (474,000-130,000 years ago), the Nesher Ramla can tell us a fascinating story that reveals much about the development and way of life of their descendants. ”
The important human fossil was discovered by Dr. Zaidner of the Hebrew University found during salvage excavations at the prehistoric site of Nesher Ramla in the mining area of the Nesher Cement Works (owned by Len Blavatnik) near the city of Ramla. At a depth of around 8 meters, the excavators found large amounts of animal bones, including horses, fallow deer and aurochs, but also stone tools and human bones. An international team led by researchers from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem identified the morphology of the bones as a new homo-type previously unknown to science. This is the first homo-type defined in Israel, and according to common practice, it was named after the place where it was discovered – the Nesher Ramla homo-type.
Dr. Yossi Zaidner: “That is an extraordinary discovery. We never would have thought that in addition to Homo sapiens, archaic Homo roamed the area so late in human history. The archaeological findings linked to human fossils indicate that “Nesher Ramla Homo” was advanced tool making 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 that is also published today in the Science Journal was published.
Prof. Hershkovitz adds that the discovery of the Nesher Ramla Homo-type calls into question the prevailing hypothesis that Neanderthals originated in Europe. “Before these new discoveries,” he says, “most researchers believed that the Neanderthals were a ‘European story’ in which small groups of Neanderthals were forced to migrate south to escape the expanding glaciers, and some came roughly in the Land of Israel at 70,000 years ago. The fossils of Nesher Ramla make us question this theory and suggest that the ancestors of the European Neanderthals lived in the Levant as early as 400,000 years ago and migrated repeatedly west to Europe and east to Asia. In fact, our results imply that the famous Neanderthals of Western Europe are just the remnants of a much larger population that lived here in the Levant – and not the other way around. ”
According to Dr. Hila May, the results of Nesher Ramla, despite the lack of DNA in these fossils, offer a solution to a great mystery in the evolution of Homo: How did Homo sapiens genes get into the Neanderthal population that has presumably lived in Europe for a long time? before the arrival of Homo sapiens? Geneticists studying the DNA of European Neanderthals previously suggested the existence of a Neanderthal-like population, what they termed the “missing population” or “X-population”, which mated with Homo sapiens more than 200,000 years ago. In the anthropological article now published in Science, the researchers suggest that the Nesher Ramla Homo type might represent this population that was previously absent from human fossil records. Additionally, the researchers suggest that the people of Nesher Ramla are not the only ones of their kind discovered in the region, and that some human fossils previously found in Israel have baffled anthropologists for years – like the fossils from the Tabun Cave (160,000160 years ago), Zuttiyeh Cave (250,000) and Qesem Cave (400,000) – belong to the same new group of people now known as the Nesher Ramla Homo type.
“People think in paradigms,” says Dr. Rachel Sarig. “That is why efforts have been made to assign these fossils to known groups of people such as Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis or the Neanderthals. But now we say: no. This is a group in itself, with different characteristics and characteristics. Later, small groups of the Nesher Ramla Homo-type migrated to Europe – where they evolved into the “classic” Neanderthals we know, and also to Asia, where they evolved into archaic populations With Neanderthal-like characteristics, Europe and Asia served the land of Israel as a melting pot where various human populations mingled and later spread into the Old World. The discovery of Nesher Ramla writes a new and fascinating chapter in human history. “
Prof. Gerhard Weber, Associate at the University of Vienna, argues that the story of Neanderthal evolution is told differently after this discovery: “Europe was not the exclusive refuge of the Neanderthals, from where they occasionally diffused into West Asia. We think that there was a lot. ” more exchange of sides in Eurasia and that the Levant is geographically a crucial starting point or at least a bridgehead for this process. “
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Link to the research video:
Link to the research video:
Static cranial & mandible & parietal orthography (also attached as PNG file):
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