http://www.sci-news.com/genetics/stajnia-cave-neanderthal-mitochondrial-genome-08830.html
Reconstruction of a Neanderthal. Image credit: Neanderthal Museum.
The Neanderthal molar tooth, dubbed S5000, was found in 2007 in Stajnia Cave in Poland’s Kraków-Częstochowa Upland.
An assemblage of stone tools and animal bones was recovered from the same archaeological layer, dated to marine isotope stage (MIS) 5a, between 82,000 and 71,000 years ago.
The finds were attributed to the Micoquian cultural tradition, which is documented in a vast area from the Saône River to the western shore of the Caspian Sea.
“The Stajnia S5000 molar is truly an exceptional find that sheds light on the debate over the wide distribution of the Micoquian artifacts,” said lead author Dr. Andrea Picin, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
“The morphology of the tooth is typical of Neanderthal,” added co-author Dr. Stefano Benazzi, a paleoanthropologist at Bologna University.
“The worn condition of the crown suggests that it belonged to an adult.”
3D digital model of the Stajnia S5000 molar.
Image credit: Stefano Benazzi.
“The molecular age of approximately 80,000 years places the tooth from Stajnia Cave in this important period of Neanderthal history when the environment was characterized by extreme seasonality and some groups dispersed eastwards to Central Asia,” the researchers said.
“We were thrilled when the genetic analysis revealed that the tooth was at least 80,000 years old,” said co-authors Dr. Wioletta Nowaczewska from Wroclaw University and Dr. Adam Nadachowski from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences.
“Fossils of this age are very difficult to find and, generally, DNA is not well preserved.”
“At the beginning, we thought that the tooth was younger since it was found in an upper layer,” they said.
“We were aware that Stajnia Cave is a complex site, and post-depositional frost disturbance mixed artifacts between layers. We are happily surprised by the result.”
Lithic artifacts from Stajnia Cave: (1-3) bifacial tool, (4, 5) preform of bifacial tool, (6, 7, 10) Levallois recurrent unidirectional flake, (8) fragment of bifacial tool, (11-12) scraper, (13) exhausted discoid core, (9) Levallois recurrent centripetal flakes, (14) discoid core. Image credit: Picin et al, doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-71504-x.
The authors also found that the mitochondrial DNA of S5000 is very close to that of Mezmaiskaya 1 Neanderthal from the Caucasus.
It has a more distant relationship to the later Western European Neanderthals and belongs to the Neanderthal mtDNA clade that separated from the Altai (Denisova 5), Denisova 15 and Scladina Neanderthal mitochondrial genomes 170,000 years ago.
“We were aware of the geographical importance of this tooth for adding more chronological points in the distribution map of genetic information of Neanderthals,” said co-author Dr. Mateja Hajdinjak, a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.
“Poland, located at the crossroad between the Western European Plains and the Urals, is a key region in understanding these migrations and for solving questions about the adaptability and biology of Neanderthals in periglacial habitat,” Dr. Picin said.
The findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports.
Recommend this post and follow The birth of modern Man
https://disqus.com/home/forum/lifeofearth/
https://chuckincardinal.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment