Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
DFG Centre of Advanced Studies 'Words, Bones, Genes, Tools', Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Nature. 2019 Jul;571(7766):500-504. doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1376-z. Epub 2019 Jul 10.
Two fossilized human crania (Apidima 1 and Apidima 2) from Apidima Cave, southern Greece, were discovered in the late 1970s but have remained enigmatic owing to their incomplete nature, taphonomic distortion and lack of archaeological context and chronology. Here we virtually reconstruct both crania, provide detailed comparative descriptions and analyses, and date them using U-series radiometric methods. Apidima 2 dates to more than 170 thousand years ago and has a Neanderthal-like morphological pattern. By contrast, Apidima 1 dates to more than 210 thousand years ago and presents a mixture of modern human and primitive features. These results suggest that two late Middle Pleistocene human groups were present at this site-an early Homo sapiens population, followed by a Neanderthal population. Our findings support multiple dispersals of early modern humans out of Africa, and highlight the complex demographic processes that characterized Pleistocene human evolution and modern human presence in southeast Europe.
两个来自希腊南部阿皮迪马洞穴的石化人类颅骨（阿皮迪马 1 号和阿皮迪马 2 号）于 20 世纪 70 年代末被发现，但由于其不完整的性质、埋藏学变形以及缺乏考古背景和年代，它们一直是个谜。在这里，我们通过虚拟重建这两个颅骨，提供详细的比较描述和分析，并使用铀系测年方法对它们进行年代测定。阿皮迪马 2 号的年代超过 17 万年，具有尼安德特人样的形态模式。相比之下，阿皮迪马 1 号的年代超过 21 万年，呈现出现代人类和原始特征的混合。这些结果表明，在这个遗址上存在两个晚更新世人类群体——一个早期智人种群，随后是尼安德特人种群。我们的发现支持了早期现代人多次从非洲扩散出来，并强调了特征为更新世人类进化和现代人类在东南欧存在的复杂人口过程。
