Jawbone of Earliest Modern Human Found
Posted on: Tuesday, 23 September 2003, 06:00 CDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A jawbone found in a cave in Romania may be evidence of the earliest modern humans in Europe, living at the same time as the last of the Neanderthals.
Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, has dated the bone at 34,000 to 36,000 years ago. His findings are reported in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The jawbone was found by recreational cavers who gave it to Oana Moldovan, director of the cave research institute in Cluj, Romania.
Moldovan, Trinkaus and Ricardo Rodrigo, a Portuguese archaeologist, returned to the cave in June with the cavers and found a facial skeleton, temporal bone and other pieces that are now undergoing analysis.
The early date for the jawbone makes it the oldest from a modern human found in Europe, though Trinkaus said it retained some earlier characteristics, including extremely large wisdom teeth.
The date places it in the period during which early modern humans overlapped with late surviving Neanderthals in Europe, Trinkaus said.
It has characteristics similar to other early modern humans found in Africa, the Middle East and Europe, but certain features, such as the unusual molar size and proportions, indicate their archaic human origins and a possible Neanderthal connection, the researchers said. That suggests the possibility of interbreeding with Neanderthals.
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