S T. L O U I S,
April 20 — A 24,500-year-old skeleton found in Portugal
with characteristics of both early modern humans and Neanderthals shows the two groups
interbred and may be ancestors of modern man.
The hybrid skeleton of what was likely a
4-year-old boy refuted the widely held theory that early humans emigrated from Africa and
displaced the Neanderthal population without interbreeding, Washington University
anthropologist Erik Trinkaus said.
The hybrid skeleton was the first evidence ever found that
populations of early modern humans and Neanderthals interacted and interbred, Trinkaus
said.
“This skeleton shows a mixture of features that are features
of modern man,” he said in a telephone interview. Not a Rarity
Many anthropologists support the so-called “Out of Africa” theory of human
origins that says modern humans evolved in Africa and spread across the world about
100,000 years ago.
There is considerable evidence that Cro-Magnon people, who became
modern humans, lived side-by-side with and interacted with Neanderthals, which died out
about 30,000 years ago.
“This find refutes strict replacement models of modern human
origins — that early modern humans all emerged from Africa and wiped out the
Neanderthal population,” Trinkaus said.
Radiocarbon dating of the skeleton excavated in December showed
it lived about 24,500 years ago, or 4,000 years after the time that early modern humans
migrated across the Pyrenees and into the Iberian Peninsula where Neanderthals were
already living, he said.
“This skeleton, which has some characteristics of
Neanderthals and others of early modern humans, demonstrates that early modern humans and
Neanderthals are not all that different. They intermixed, interbred and produced
offspring,” Trinkaus said.
He said the skeleton could not be dismissed as just a product of
some unlikely, rare affair between members of the two groups.
“This is not a love child,” he continued. “The
results of admixture were there in the population 4,000 years after Neanderthals and early
modern humans first met on the Iberian Peninsula.”
Human Chin, Neanderthal
Body
A study published in 1997 of DNA taken from the Neanderthal skeleton discovered in
Germany’s Neander valley in 1856 indicated it was too distant genetically to have
been an ancestor of modern humans.
But Trinkaus said that merely proved that Neanderthals were not
modern man, which was already known.
Though the skeleton’s skull was crushed when a farmer
bulldozed the then-undiscovered site six years ago, Portuguese archaeologists led by
Portugal’s director of antiquities, Joao Zilhao, subsequently found the
well-preserved body and the intact lower jaw preserved in red ochre a few inches below the
surface.
The prominent chin was characteristic of early modern humans
while the stocky trunk and short limbs reflected its Neanderthal origins, Trinkaus said.
Other arm bones pointed to early modern human parentage.
The skeleton was found when an archaeologist stuck his hand down
a rabbit hole and pulled out the well-preserved skeleton’s left forearm. The body was
buried in red ochre, with a pierced shell, indicating a ritual burial, Trinkaus said.
The site is on a hillside near Leiria, Portugal, in the Lapedo
Valley 80 miles north of Lisbon and 19 miles off the Atlantic Coast.
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S U M M A R
Y
A 24,500-year-old skeleton with
traits of both Neanderthals and early modern humans shows the two groups interbred.
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