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Before the Massive Modern Human Dispersal Into Eurasia a 55,000 Quaternary International xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint Before the massive modern human dispersal into Eurasia: A 55,000-year-old partial cranium from Manot Cave, Israel ∗ Gerhard W. Webera, , Israel Hershkovitzb,c, Philipp Gunzd, Simon Neubauerd, Avner Ayalone, Bruce Latimerf, Miryam Bar-Matthewse, Gal Yasure, Omry Barzilaig, Hila Mayb,c a Department of Anthropology & Core Facility for Micro-Computed Tomography, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria b Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, PO Box 39040, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel c Dan David Center for Human Evolution & Biohistory Research, Shmunis Family Anthropology Institute, Sackler Fac. of Med., Tel Aviv University, PO Box 39040, 6997801, Tel Aviv, Israel d Department of Human Evolution, Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, D-04103, Leipzig, Germany e Geological Survey of Israel, Yisha'ayahu Leibowitz St. 32, Jerusalem, Israel f Departments of Anatomy and Orthodontics, Case Western Reserve University, 44106, Cleveland, OH, USA g Israel Antiquities Authority, PO Box 586, 91004, Jerusalem, Israel ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: Genetic and archaeological models predict that African modern humans successfully colonized Eurasia between Early modern humans 60,000 and 40,000 years before present (ka), replacing all other forms of hominins. While there is good evidence Neanderthals for the first arrival in Eurasia around 50-45ka, the fossil record is extremely scarce with regard to earlier re- Out-of-Africa presentatives. A partial calvaria discovered at Manot Cave (Western Galilee, Israel) dated to > 55 ka by ur- Modern human migration anium–thorium dating was recently described. Since then, other findings indicated an early dispersal of modern Hybridization humans out-of-Africa between 194 and 177ka (Misliya-1) or possibly even earlier at 210ka (Apidima 1), and a Neurocranial shape quite long existence of Homo sapiens in Africa (Jebel Irhoud, ~300ka). While the faces of these early Homo sapiens appear quite modern, the shape of the braincase seems to lack behind, reaching the modern state only around after 35ka. Here, new data and approaches were applied to the Manot 1 calvaria. The ecto- and en- docranial shape analyses based on micro-computed tomography data and a landmark-semilandmark approach using multiple reconstructions of the incomplete calvaria confirm that Manot 1 is unequivocally modern human. Its endocranial shape is markedly different from the earliest known Homo sapiens and close to the Levantine Qafzeh/Skhul assemblage (120-90ka) as well as modern humans, but still shows some deviations from both groups. The absence of other Homo sapiens fossils in the Levant between the Qafzeh/Skhul and Manot popula- tions is not supportive for the hypothesis of a continuous occupation or the local evolution of modern humans. It suggests that Manot 1 represents a population migrating out-of-Africa and reaching the Levantine corridor during warmer and wetter climatic conditions over the Northern Sahara and the Mediterranean. Manot 1 shows that both modern humans and Neanderthals (e.g. Kebara, Amud) contemporaneously inhabited the Levant during the Middle to Upper Paleolithic interface. The endocranial shape of Manot 1 might indicate that this population had not yet fully reached the brainshape of modern humans evident after 35ka. 1. Introduction et al., 2011; Sutikna et al., 2016; Mondal et al., 2016; Douka et al., 2019, Détroit et al., 2019). The final expansion of modern humans across the entire Old World Modern human fossils from the beginning of this transitional period between 60 and 40 thousand years ago (ka) was one of the major events are very rare but are key to understanding the relationships and pro- in human evolution. It heralded the decline of all other hominin groups cesses that ultimately resulted in modern Homo sapiens. Manot 1 is a that existed, most notably the Neanderthals, but probably also other partial cranium (Fig. 1) from this crucial period (Hershkovitz et al., archaic forms that still roamed Asia (Yokoyama et al., 2008; Indriati 2015). Manot Cave is situated in Israel in the eastern Mediterranean ∗ Corresponding author. Dept. of Anthropology, University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, A-1090, Vienna, Austria. E-mail address: [email protected] (G.W. Weber). URL: http://www.anthropology.at/people/gweber (G.W. Weber). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.10.009 Received 4 February 2019; Received in revised form 19 July 2019; Accepted 11 October 2019 1040-6182/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: Gerhard W. Weber, et al., Quaternary International, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2019.10.009 G.W. Weber, et al. Quaternary International xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx Fig. 1. The original specimen Manot 1 in left and top view. Note the brownish calcite crust that was used for U–Th dating. Fig. 2. Map of West Asian sites and map of the cave indicating the excavation areas A-L and the discovery area of Manot 1 (red circle). The photo shows the exact spot where the calvaria was found on the flowstone ledge in a small side chamber near Area G. (For interpretation of the references to colour in this figure legend, the reader is referred to the Web version of this article.) zone, along with many other important Israeli sites such as Hayonim, (Fig. 1) could be sampled and U–Th dating could be applied. The dating Amud, Skhul, Qafzeh, Tabun or Kebara, and not far from Ksar Akil in of 11 samples from the calcitic crust yielded ages between 68.4ka ± 6.8 Lebanon, and Dederiyeh in Syria (Fig. 2 left). The cave is an active to 39.2ka ± 5.6. The average of all 11 samples was 54.7ka ± 5.5 (2σ karstic cave with abundant speleothems. It consists of an 80 m long error). (Hershkovitz et al., 2015). Manot 1 is thus either related to an main hall sloping down and two lower chambers connecting from the IUP phase, as suggested in Area C based on the very few flint artefacts north and the south (Fig. 2 middle). Part of the cave surface is covered uncovered in Units 7–8, or Manot 1 is associated with a late Mousterian by flowstones. The Manot calotte was found behind a partial wall of occupation of the cave. Mousterian artefacts were recovered in Areas C stalagmites resting on a flowstone ledge in a small side chamber (right and D (Hershkovitz et al., 2015; Marder et al., 2017). to area G, Fig. 2, red circles) extending from the NE wall. There were no The overall shape and the qualitative traits of the calvaria demon- associated loose sediments or cultural artefacts. strated that Manot 1 was unequivocally a modern human (Hershkovitz Seven areas (A-G) were opened during the excavations 2010–2014 et al., 2015). However, in this initial publication, the shape of the en- (Fig. 2 middle). The other areas (H-L) were processed in later seasons docranium was not analyzed using statistical shape analysis. In addi- 2015–2018. The archaeological record demonstrates that the cave was tion, several findings after 2015 raised interesting questions and per- intensively occupied during the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP; attested spectives related to the early and late evolution of anatomically modern by intact sequences of layers in Area E and preserved sedimentological humans. layers in Area C; Marder et al., 2013). The sequence is stratified going One of the discoveries that increased our knowledge about the back in time (top to bottom) from Levantine Aurignacian (38-34ka) to African beginning of our species Homo sapiens since the initial pre- Ahmarian (46-38ka) and possibly Initial Upper Paleolithic (> 50ka) sentation of Manot 1 (Hershkovitz et al., 2015) was that Homo sapiens, (Hershkovitz et al., 2015). The Middle Paleolithic (MP) is documented or at least hominins very close to our own lineage (Hublin et al., 2017), by scattered finds in Areas A, C and D (Barzilai et al., 2012, 2016; had established themselves as early as Marine Isotope Stage (MIS)-8/9 Marder et al., 2018). In Area E, near the entrance, there are the remains in North West Africa (Jebel Irhoud ~300ka; Richter et al., 2017). These of the last occupation with Levantine Aurignacian before the cave en- findings further substantiated the idea (Bräuer et al., 1997) that Homo trance collapsed and sealed the cave. sapiens originated and dispersed in Africa far earlier than was suggested The radiocarbon dates from charcoal samples are in good agreement by the East African MIS-6 fossils from Omo (195ka; McDougall et al., with Uranium–Thorium (U–Th) dates from the in situ flowstones and 2005) and Herto (160ka; White et al., 2003). For example, Florisbad 1 confirm the occupation of the cave during the MP (Hershkovitz et al., from South Africa (Dreyer, 1935; ~259ka, Grün et al., 1996) and Eliye 2015). The calcitic crusts on the inside and outside of the calvaria Springs ES-11693 from Kenya (Bräuer and Leakey, 1986) may represent 2 G.W. Weber, et al. Quaternary International xxx (xxxx) xxx–xxx an archaic part of the Homo sapiens clade (Stringer, 2016), dating back around 45ka (Fu et al., 2014), in Tam Pa Ling (Laos) 51-46ka (Demeter more than 200ka. Another new discovery, the Levantine maxilla Mis- et al., 2012), at Willandra Lakes (Australia) 46-39ka (Allen and liya-1 (Hershkovitz et al., 2018), indicated early modern human mi- O'Connell, 2014), and also in Niah (Borneo) > 46ka (Barker et al., gration out-of-Africa and suggested that Homo sapiens had reached West 2007) and, demonstrated by figurative art, at Lubang Jeriji Saléh Asia during early MIS-6, specifically between 194 and 177ka, a time (Borneo) > 40ka (Aubert et al., 2018).
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