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ESR Ages for Krapina Hominids SCIENTIFIC CORRESPONDENCE species, indicating a habitat that could The spatial structure of the terrestrial original excavation, found at the museum. support grazing mammals 10. interglacial environment requires further We used mass spectrometric U-series The GRIP core seemed to corroborate investigation, as does the mammoths' analysis of the enamel and dentine a difference between Holocene climate response to it, which clearly varied across to evaluate U-uptake history, which and that of previous interglacials by their vast range. A crucial role may have affects the calculated ESR age5• Early showing major fluctuations within the 'last been played by unglaciated Arctic regions in uptake yields the minimum age for a given interglacial' around 120 kyr. The veracity providing interglacial refuges for the data set, while linear-uptake ages of this part of the core has been tundra-steppe grazers. This pattern was commonly agree with other age estimates. questioned, however: the 'fluctuations' again followed at the start of the Equivalent early-uptake ages and U-series may be due to folding; moreover, they Pleistocene/Holocene transition, which ages in teeth from layers 5-6 indicated are not seen in some other ice-core and seems to have begun as a 'normal' inter­ early U-uptake, whereas early-uptake oceanic sequences11 • On the other hand, glacial. However, subsequent changes, ages of teeth from layers 7-8 were larger independent lines of evidence corroborate culminating in the onset of stable climate than associated U-series dates, implying Eemian inconstancy, including data from documented by the ice cores, resulted in an continuous U uptake. The respective the crucial terrestrial realm. Data from a irreversible turnover of the Pleistocene linear-uptake or early-uptake ages of lake core in France2 indicate two rapid biota. teeth from layers 1-8 were indistinguish­ cooling events within the last interglacial, Adrian M. Lister able, with a mean of 130± 10 kyr, showing including a period of reversion from forest Department of Biology, that the entire fluviatile sequence was to open subalpine vegetation. Analysis of University College London, formed in the last interglacial (stage Se), detailed pollen records from Germany1 London WC1E 6BT, UK consistent with its fauna! character. suggests greater climatic instability in the Andrei V. Sher Whereas hominids from beds 3- 7 are last interglacial than in the Holocene. Severtsov Institute of Ecology all Neanderthals, layer 8 ( also dated to Finally, evidence of mid-Eemian cooling and Evolution, 130 kyr) contained cranial elements of a has come from studies in the Norwegian Russian Academy of Sciences, 6-8-yr-old juvenile (Krapina 1) . Some Sea and North Atlantic Ocean4. Moscow 117071, Russia metric and morphological aspects group it with other juvenile Neanderthals, but its more pentagonal shape in rear view, ESR ages for Krapina hominids higher frontal squama and some other characteristics approach the condition of SIR - At the site of Krapina, 40 km NNW the site (see table). Teeth from the early modern humans (N. Minugh-Purvis, of Zagreb, more than 850 skeletal remains 1899-1905 archaeological excavations of unpublished thesis, Univ. Pennsylvania). from several Neanderthal individuals K. Gorjanovic-Kramberger, stored at A partial occipital bone from layer 8 were found, principally in layers 3 and 4 the Croatian Natural History Museum, (Krapina 11) lacks a suprainiac fossa, a (refs 1, 2), associated with a Middle were analysed as in ref. 4. External -y­ characteristic of Neanderthals observed in Palaeolithic industry3. We have obtained and 13-dose rates were estimated from U, occipitals from layers 3-4. These data electron spin resonance (ESR)4 and Th and K analyses of blocks of weakly suggest that the layer 8 hominids are U-series dates on tooth enamel from indurated sand preserved from the possibly transitional to anatomically modem hominids, raising the question ESR AND U-SERIES DATES FOR KRAPINA of when this taxon first appeared in Layer Sample ESR age (kyr) U-series age (kyr) Europe. W. J. Rink Early uptake Average Linear uptake Average Enamel Dentine H. P. Schwarcz 9 91187A 87±7 87±7 113±10 113±10 Department of Geology, McMaster University, Hamilton, 8 91182A 109±9 147±14 Ontario LBS 4M1, Canada 911828 90±8 120±12 91182C 88±7 122±11 F. H. Smith 91182D 90±6 126±11 Department of Anthropology, 91182E 94±6 128±11 Northern Illinois University, 91182G 88±8 120±11 Dekalb, Illinois 60115, USA 91182H 93±9 130±12 J. Radovclc 911821 90±10 123±13 Croatian Natural History Museum, 7- 8 91183A 108±9 99±5 139±14 132±5 69.7±0.5 89.8±1.4 Demetrova 1, 1000 Zagreb, Croatia 911838 96±8 128±12 1. Smith , F. in The Origins of Modern Humans (eds Smith, 91183C 94±7 127±12 F. H. & Spencer, F. ) 137- 209 (Liss, New York, 1984). 91183D 94±7 128±12 2. GorjanoviC-Kramberger, D. Der diluviale Mensch van 91183E 95±8 126±12 Krapina in Kroatien: £in Beitrag zur Paliioanthropologie 91183F 103±9 135±13 (Kriedel, Wiesbaden, 1906). 3. Simek, J. in Raw Material Economies Among Prehistoric 91183G 100±8 132±13 Hunter Gatherers (eds Montet-White, A. & Holen, S.) 91183H 102±8 135±13 59- 71 (Univ. Kansas Pubis Anthropology, Lawrence, KS. 91184 131±13 152±17 1991). 4 . Grun, R. , Schwarcz, H. P. & Zymela, S. Can. J. Earth Sci. 5-6 91186A 126±11 130±3 178±17 167±10 131±1 223±4 24, 1022- 1037 (198 7). 5. Grun, R., Schwarcz, H. P. & Chadam, J_J . nuc/. Tracks 93042A 132±13 160±18 415 ~§i Radiat. Measmt 14, 237- 241 (1988). 930428 132±14 162±19 1 91185A 142±12 133±15 185±19 180±15 91188A 142±11 192±18 Scientific Correspondence 91189A 116±9 163±16 Scientific Correspondence is intended to - - ----- - --·----------· ~- - provide a forum in which readers may ESR dates are computed assuming 10±10% water in sediment. 'I· And J3-doses from raise poi nts of a scientific character. sediment were determined from neutron activation analyses of sediment samples for U, Th and Priority will be given to letters of fewer K. J3-doses were corrected for attenuation. U-series ages were determined by thermal ionization than 500 words and fi ve references. mass spectrometry5• 24 NATURE · VOL 3 78 · 2 NOVEMBER 1995 © 1995 Nature Publishing Group.
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