A large international team of scientists, led by the University of Tel Aviv (Israel), has discovered in the Misliya cave in Israel, the oldest human fossil: an upper jaw fragment along with several teeth that belonged to one of the first Homo sapiens that left Africa. According to the three independent dating methods used, the fossil is between 200,000 and 175,000 years old, suggesting that modern humans left the continent at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.
“ Misliya is an exciting discovery, ” says Rolf Quam, a professor of anthropology at Binghamton University and a co-author of the study. “It provides the clearest evidence yet that our ancestors migrated from Africa much earlier than we thought. It also means that modern humans encountered and interacted over a longer period of time with other archaic human groups, providing more opportunities for culture and biological exchanges “.
The Misliya Cave in Israel is one of the prehistoric sites located on Mount Carmel and, thanks to various independent dating techniques applied to archaeological materials and the fossil itself, scientists have determined that the jaw is between 175,000 and 200,000 years old. old, setting modern human migration out of Africa back by at least 50,000 years.
“While all the anatomical details in the Misliya fossil are fully consistent with modern humans, some features are also found in Neanderthals and other human groups. One of the challenges in this study was identifying features in Misliya that are found only in modern humans. These are the characteristics that provide the clearest signal of which species the Misliya fossil represents , “says Quam.
Archaeological evidence reveals that the Misliya Cave inhabitants were skilled hunters of large game species, controlled fire production, and used a set of stone tools from the Early Middle Paleolithic , similar to that found with early modern humans in Africa.
The timing and routes of modern human migration out of Africa are key issues in understanding the evolution of our own species, where the Middle East region represents an important corridor for hominin migrations during the Pleistocene and has been occupied at different times. of history by both modern humans and Neanderthals.
This new discovery opens the door to demographic replacement or genetic mixing with local populations earlier than previously thought, the authors clarify.
In fact, the evidence from Misliya is consistent with recent ancient DNA-based studies for an earlier migration – 220,000 years ago – of modern humans out of Africa. Several recent archaeological and fossil discoveries in Asia are also delaying the first appearance of modern humans in the region and, by implication, migration out of Africa.
Reference: Israel Hershkovitz, Gerhard W. Weber, Rolf Quam, Mathieu Duval, Rainer Grün, Leslie Kinsley, Avner Ayalon, Miryam Bar-Matthews, Helene Valladas, Norbert Mercier, Juan Luis Arsuaga, María Martinón-Torres, José María Bermúdez de Castro , Cinzia Fornai, Laura Martín-Francés, Rachel Sarig, Hila May, Viktoria A. Krenn, Viviane Slon, Laura Rodríguez, Rebeca García, Carlos Lorenzo, Jose Miguel Carretero, Amos Frumkin, Ruth Shahack-Gross, Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Yaming Cui, Xinzhi Wu, Natan Peled, Iris Groman-Yaroslavski, Lior Weissbrod, Reuven Yeshurun, Alexander Tsatskin, Yossi Zaidner, Mina Weinstein-Evron. The earliest modern humans outside Africa . Science , 26 Jan 2018 456-459 DOI: 10.1126 / science.aap8369
