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Fossil find could shed light on Neanderthal – human interbreeding

July 1, 2014

News

Life Sciences

Biological Sciences, Paleobiology

A collection of human fossils feared lost has been found and could shed light on whether Neanderthals and modern humans met and interbred. The fossils – from a collection once belonging to Sir Arthur Keith, Master at the Royal College of Surgeons research station Buckston Browne Farm – have the potential to answer important questions about modern humans. “Some of the fossils date back to a key time period where Neanderthals and modern humans may have co-existed in the Middle East and Europe,” said Dr Isabelle De Groote from Liverpool John Moores University. “Very few early modern human fossils exist that date to the later Middle Palaeolithic and the material is therefore very significant. It has the potential to answer important questions about the dispersal of anatomically modern humans out of Africa.” A study published in Quaternary International shows the fossils were first excavated by pioneer archaeologist Dorothy Garrod in the 1920s and 1930s in modern Israel. The sites of Shukbah and El Wad were the first to be excavated in the area, and yielded primary Late Upper Palaeolithic Natufian material, briefly described by Garrod and Keith.

El-Wad human fossil material. El-Wad layer E: A. EM 3915 Rt corpus mandibularis. B. EM 3932 Loose upper Lt UM3. Possibly associated with Mandible EM 3915. C. EM 3916 lt corpus mandibularis. D. EM 3928 Loose upper Rt P4. Possibly associated with Mandible EM 3916. E. EM 3930 Loose upper Lt M2. Possibly associated with Mandible EM 3916. F. EM 3931 Loose lower Rt I1. G. EM 3925 Loose lower Lt I2. H. EM 3927 Loose lower Rt P3. I. EM 3926 Loose lower Lt P4. J. EM 3924 Loose upper Rt deciduous C1. K. EM 3929 Loose lower Rt M1. L. EM 3919 Partial lumbar vertebra. M. EM 3918 Talus. N. EM 3920 Metatarsal fragment. O. EM 3917 phalanx pedis. P. EM 3933 Intermediate phalanx. Q. EM 3921 Manual distal phalanx. El-Wad Layer D: R. EM 3936 Rt mandible with M1. S. EM 3935 Atlas. T. EM 3937 Lower Lt and Rt M2s, antimeres. Photography: Charley Coleman.

Older material belonging to Neanderthals and early modern humans was described by Keith and Theodore McCown – who helped Garrod with morphological analysis – in 1939. Their detailed descriptions, featured in The Stone Age of Mount Carmel, were the only testament to their existence. The fossils were transferred to the Natural History Museum following Keith’s death in 1955, but the latest portion was not received until 2001. “We believe the collection became lost because the bombings of the Royal College of Surgeons in London made it necessary to transfer the material back to safety at Buckston Browne Farm, as well as McCown’s move to Berkeley University in 1939,” said De Groote. “It's sometimes possible to make important finds through careful detective work on existing collections, rather than from new excavations, and this study is a great example of that,” said Professor Chris Stringer Research Leader in Human Origins at the Natural History Museum. “The material in question had been stored, unrecognised, for about 50 years until it arrived at the Museum in 2001. We now know that it not only contained the lost collection of modern human fossils from Shukbah Cave – the type site of the Natufian industry in Israel – but also some more fragmentary, but equally important, fossils that may cover the period of overlap between the last Neanderthals and the first modern humans in Israel, some 50,000 years ago.” Sir Arthur Keith’s legacy: Rediscovering a lost collection of human fossils