First Modern Humans Migrate to Europe | Early European History And Religion

FIRST MODERN HUMANS IN EUROPE

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Cro Magnon female skull
Modern humans are believed to have reached Europe around 45,000 years ago. It was originally thought they arrived via the Middle East or North Africa possibly crossed a lang bridge between Tunisia, Sicily and Italy or the Strait of Gibralter but genetic evidence indicates that more likely they came from Asia. The DNA of western Eurasians is more like people from India than those from Africa. The conclusion that one draws is that Europe was populated by people who migrated across western Asia and the Balkans into Europe between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago. The earliest remains of modern humans in Europe is a 40,000-year-old skull of a teenage boy found in a cave in Romania In a January 2007 article in Science, scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences and the University of Colorado, reported that they found human teeth, tools, carved ivory and other artifacts , dated to 40,000 to 42,000 years ago, at an archaeological site on the Dom River 400 kilometers south of Moscow. This finding shows that early modern humans migrated further north than previously thought.

The second earliest fossils remains of modern humans in Europe are a jaw and part of skull found in 2002 (and announced in September 2003) in Pestera cu Oasem a cave in the southwestern Carpathian mountains in Romania. Dated to 34,000 to 36,000 years ago, the specimen has a somewhat primitive jaw bone and large developed molars, leading some scientists to speculate the fossils had come from a cross breed between modern humans and Neanderthal man.

It is widely assumed that cold, inhospitable weather prevented modern humans from entering Europe earlier than they did. By 35,000 years they were well established and quickly dominated and replaced Neanderthals that began declining about the same time modern humans arrived. The population shrank a great deal during the Ice Age 20,000 years ago then rebounded. The Ice Age nearly wiped out humans.

DNA studies indicate that 6 percent of Europeans arose from the first people who arrived about 45,000 years ago. These people are more numerous in certain places like the Basque region and remote parts of Scandinavia. Another 80 percent arrived 30,000 to 20,000 years ago before the peak of glaciation. The remaining 10 percent arrived about 10,000 years ago.

Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution

Websites and Resources on Neanderthals: Wikipedia: Neanderthals Wikipedia ; Neanderthals Study Guide thoughtco.com ; Neandertals on Trial, from PBS pbs.org/wgbh/nova; The Neanderthal Museum neanderthal.de/en/ ; The Neanderthal Flute, by Bob Fink greenwych.ca

Ice Ages

limit of ice and land bridges in the last Ice Age

Neanderthals and early modern humans lived at a time when Ice Ages were shaping the climate and landscape of the places they lived in Europe and elsewhere. I Ice Ages are periods of time when huge continental glaciers (sheets of ice) have crept down from the Arctic and covered much of North America and Europe. The Pleistocene Age, which lasted from 2.6-2.3 million to 11,700 years ago, is regarded as an ice age, within which there were glacial periods, which many people think of ice ages, when glaciers grew and shrunk during different periods. The first Ice Age glaciers began appearing long ago. Large glaciers have covered landmasses for millions of years at different times before the Pleistocene Age.

There has been at least five major ice ages. The first one occurred about 2 billion years ago and lasted about 300 million years. The most recent one started about 2.6 million years ago, and technically is still going on. Denise Su wrote: When most people talk about the “ice age,” they are usually referring to the last glacial period, which began about 115,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago with the start of the current interglacial period. During that time, the planet was much cooler than it is now. At its peak, when ice sheets covered most of North America, the average global temperature was about 46 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). That’s 11 degrees F (6 degrees C) cooler than the global annual average today. That difference might not sound like a lot, but it resulted in most of North America and Eurasia being covered in ice sheets. Earth was also much drier, and sea level was much lower, since most of the Earth’s water was trapped in the ice sheets. Steppes, or dry grassy plains, were common. So were savannas, or warmer grassy plains, and deserts. [Source: Denise Su, Associate Professor, Arizona State University, The Conversation, June 27, 2022]

The four main glacial periods ("ice ages") are (the names refer to the southern limit of the glaciers in Europe and, in parentheses, the United States): 1) the Günz (known in the U.S. as the Nebraskan) occurred around 2 million years ago); 2) the Mindel (known in the U.S. as the Kansan) occurred around 1.25 million years ago); 3) the Riss (known in the U.S. as the Illinoisian) occurred around 500,000 years ago); and 4) the Würm (known in the U.S. as the Wisconsin) occurred around 100,000 years ago).

Migration of Early Modern Humans Out of Africa

DNA studies of people living today indicate that modern humans migrated from Eastern Africa to the Middle East, then Southern and Southeast Asia, then New Guinea and Australia, followed by Europe and Central Asia. Perhaps they didn't enter Europe because that region was dominated by Neanderthals. According to research by geneticist at the University of Cambridge in the mid 2000s all modern humans descend from a small number of Africans that left Africa between 55,000 and 60,000 years ago. Another less reliable DNA study determined that an intrepid group of 500 hominids marched out of Africa about 140,000 years ago and they are the ancestors to all modern people today. [Source: Guy Gugliotta, Smithsonian magazine, July 2008]

These studies are based on genetic variations found in different population groups. People in sub-Saharan Africa have more genetic variation than non-Africans. The number of people and the date for the 140,000 year figure was arrived by studying genetic variations in 34 populations around the world, coming up with a rate of genetic change and extrapolated back in time. The fact that people in sub-Saharan Africa have more genetic variation than non-Africa indicated humans that have lived in Africa have lived there longer than other people have lived in their homelands.

The earliest known mutation to spread outside Africa is M168, which developed about 50,000 years ago. It is found in all non-Africans. M9 is a marker common in Eurasians. It appeared in the Middle East or Central Asia about 40,000 years ago. M3 is a marker that developed among Asian people around 10,000 years ago and reached the Americas.

Based on genetic evidence gathered by National Geographic magazine and scientists from around the globe it has been determined that modern human originated in southern Africa around 200,000 years ago and made to West Africa about 70,000 years ago and the Middle East about 50,000 years ago, advancing rapidly through southern and southeast Asia and reaching Australia also around 50,000 years ago but not reach East Asia and Siberia until 30,000 years ago and southern Europe until 20,000 years. From Siberia modern humans reached North America about 15,000 years ago and migrated southward reaching South America between 13,000 and 15,000 years ago. The group living today with the closest links to our 200,000-year-old ancestors in southern Africa are the Khoisan hunter-gatherers of southern Africa. [Source: National Geographic, November, 2009]

Some scientists feel the migration out of Africa was also accompanied by revolutions in behavior and technology such as more developed social networks and advanced tools and sophisticated language that gave them ability to prosper in new lands and in some cases drive out hominids that already lived there.

migration of modern man into Europe

Northern Route Out of Africa

Saioa López, Lucy van Dorp and Garrett Hellenthal of University College London wrote: “Some of the earliest remains of Anatomically modern humans anywhere outside of Africa, the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins, were found in the Levant (present-day Israel) and dated to 120 and 100,000–90,000 years ago, respectively. It has been suggested that these fossils represent an early exit of modern humans approximately 120,000 years ago, traveling across the Sinai Peninsula to the Levant. The next human remains found in the region include the Manot1 cranium, which was dated to around 55,000 years ago, demonstrating a considerable gap in the fossil record of Anatomically modern human occupation in the Levant. This, in conjunction with climatic records, indicating a global glacial period 90,000 years ago, has led some authors to suggest that if the first humans did exit early via the Levant they did not survive, and that the Skhul and Qafzeh hominins are the remnants of this failed exodus. Other authors emphasize the possibility that this group could have already left the Levant before the glacial period 90,000 years ago. That said, the recent presentation of archeological material, primarily stone tools and assemblages dated to 100,000–80,000 years ago, from an empty corner of the Arabian Peninsula suggests early settlements may have been widely distributed and that even if Skhul and Qafzeh do represent a failed exodus, it was broader and more complex than previously thought. [Source: Saioa López, Lucy van Dorp and Garrett Hellenthal of University College London, “Human Dispersal Out of Africa: A Lasting Debate,” Evolutionary Bioinformatics, April 21, 2016 ~]

“In addition to the evidence from the archeological and climatic record, genetic studies have also suggested some support for a Northern route. A study of Y chromosome haplogroup distributions together with 10 microsatellite loci and 45 binary markers in different African and Near Eastern populations found that the Levant was the most supported route for the primary migratory movements between Africa and Eurasia. In a more recent paper, Pagani et al sequenced the genomes of 100 Egyptians and 125 individuals from five Ethiopian ethnic groups (Amhara, Oromo, Ethiopian Somali, Wolayta, and Gumuz).64 After attempting to mask West Eurasian genetic components inherited via recent non-African admixture within the last 4,000 years ago, they showed that modern non-African haplotypes were more similar to Egyptian haplotypes than to Ethiopian haplotypes, thus suggesting that Egypt was the more likely route in the exodus out of Africa migration, assuming the efficacy of their masking procedure. However, as noted earlier, one limitation of such studies that analyze modern DNA is that extant populations may not be good representatives of past populations due to factors such as population replacement, migrations, admixture, and drift.” ~

Oldest Known Human Fossil Outside Africa Discovered in Israel

180,000-year-old human fossil from Misliya Cave in Israel

Hannah Devlin wrote in The Guardian: “A human upper jawbone fossil with several teeth and stone tools, dated to between 177,000 and 194,000 years old, were found in a cave in Israel, meaning that modern humans left Africa far earlier than previously thought, prompting scientists to rethink theories about earllu human migration. The fossil is almost twice as old as any previous Homo sapiens remains discovered outside Africa. [Source: Hannah Devlin, The Guardian, January 25, 2018 |=|]

“The fossil, a well-preserved upper jawbone with eight teeth, was discovered at the Misliya cave, which appears to have been occupied for lengthy periods. The teeth are larger than average for a modern human, but their shape and the fossil’s facial anatomy are distinctly Homo sapiens, an analysis of the fossil in the journal Science concludes. |=|

“Sophisticated stone tools and blades discovered nearby suggest the cave’s inhabitants were capable hunters, who used sling projectiles and elegantly carved blades used to kill and butcher gazelles, oryx, wild boars, hares, turtles and ostrich. The team also discovered evidence of matting made from plants that may have been used to sleep on. Radioactive dating places the fossil and tools at between 177,000 and 194,000 years old. “Hershkovitz said the record now indicates that humans probably ventured beyond the African continent whenever the climate allowed it. “I don’t believe there was one big exodus out of Africa,” he said. “I think that throughout hundreds of thousands of years [humans] were coming in and out of Africa all the time.” |=|

“Reconstructions of the ancient climate records, based on deep sea cores, show that the Middle East switched between being humid and extremely arid, and that the region would have been lush and readily habitable for several periods matching the age of the Misliya fossil.

Sources of Europeans

Ann Gibbons wrote in Science: “Europeans are the descendants of at least three major migrations of prehistoric people. First, a group of hunter-gatherers arrived in Europe about 37,000 years ago. Then, farmers began migrating from Anatolia (a region including present-day Turkey) into Europe 9000 years ago, but they initially didn’t intermingle much with the local hunter-gatherers because they brought their own families with them. Finally, 5000 to 4800 years ago, nomadic herders known as the Yamnaya swept into Europe. They were an early Bronze Age culture that came from the grasslands, or steppes, of modern-day Russia and Ukraine, bringing with them metallurgy and animal herding skills and, possibly, Proto-Indo-European, the mysterious ancestral tongue from which all of today’s 400 Indo-European languages spring. They immediately interbred with local Europeans, who were descendants of both the farmers and hunter-gatherers. Within a few hundred years, the Yamnaya contributed to at least half of central Europeans’ genetic ancestry. [Source: Ann Gibbons, Science, February 21, 2017]

According to Popular Archaeology: “Research has shown that, beginning in the seventh millennium B.C., the Balkan Peninsula was a gateway or corridor through which Neolithic culture, including farming and animal husbandry, spread from Anatolia and the Near East. Beginning in the fifth millennium B.C., human populations in the central and eastern Balkans began developing metal-processing technologies, notably that of Copper, into a relatively large-scale industry for the first time in world history. The world’s oldest copper mines, for example, were found by archaeologists near Rudna glava, Serbia and Mechikladenets/Ai bunar near Stara Zagora, Bulgaria.” [Source: Popular Archaeology, December 12, 2012 /*/]

Genetic studies by Professor Joachim Burger of the Johannes Gutenberg University, Germany, and Mark Thomas, professor of evolutionary genetics at University College, London showed that agriculture was brought to Central Europe by immigrant farmers around 7,500 years ago. From that time on, little trace of hunter-gathering can be seen in the archaeological record, and it was widely assumed that the hunter-gatherers rapidly died out or were absorbed into the farming populations.

single versus multiple migration (s) out of Africa

Neanderthal DNA Hint Modern Humans Left Africa 200,000 Years Ago

Modern humans may have left Africa as long 200,000 years ago, a study published in Cell in January 2020 suggests. Carl Zimmer wrote in the New York Times: “Using a new method to analyze DNA, however, a team of scientists has found evidence that significantly reshapes that narrative. Their study concludes that a wave of modern humans departed Africa far earlier than had been known: some 200,000 years ago. These people interbred with Neanderthals, the new study suggests. As a result, Neanderthals were already carrying genes from modern humans when the next big migration from Africa occurred, about 140,000 years later. [Source: Carl Zimmer, New York Times, January 31, 2020]

“The scientists also found evidence that people living somewhere in western Eurasia moved back to Africa and interbred with people whose ancestors never left. The new study suggests that all Africans have a substantially greater amount of Neanderthal DNA than earlier estimates. “The legacy of gene flow with Neanderthals likely exists in all modern humans, highlighting our shared history,” the authors concluded. “Overall, I find this a fantastic study,” said Omer Gokcumen, a geneticist at the University at Buffalo, who was not involved in the research. The research offers a view of human history “almost as a spider web of interactions, rather than a tree with distinct branches.”

“But while evidence has been building that modern humans left Africa in waves, and that those migrations began much earlier than once thought, some scientists disputed the evidence that people of African descent may be carrying Neanderthal genes. David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, praised much of the study but said he had doubts about how extensive the flow of DNA back to Africa could have been. “It looks like this is a really weak signal,” he said of the data.

“Other experts said the new study offered compelling support for earlier hints for this ancient expansion. In 2019, for example, a team of scientists reported finding a modern human skull in Greece dating back over 210,000 years. Other researchers discovered small fragments of DNA in Neanderthal fossils that showed a striking similarity to modern human genes.

“Despite his hesitation over the analysis of African DNA, Dr. Reich said the new findings do make a strong case that modern humans departed Africa much earlier than thought. “I was on the fence about that, but this paper makes me think it’s right,” he said. In recent years, Dr. Reich and other researchers have found evidence that ancient people from the Near East moved back into Africa in the past few thousand years and spread their DNA to many African populations.

How It Was Determined that Neanderthal DNA Hinted Modern Humans Left Africa 200,000 Yeats Ago

Joshua Akey, a geneticist at Princeton University who was involved in some of the early studies that linked Neanderthal DNA with modern humans, grew dissatisfied with the methods used to look for Neanderthal DNA in living people. The standard method was built on the assumption that most Africans had no Neanderthal DNA at all. Dr. Akey and his colleagues figured out a new method, which they call IBDMix, that takes advantage of the fact that relatives share stretches of matching DNA.

“Siblings, for example, share many long, identical stretches of DNA. But their children will have fewer identical segments, which will also be shorter. Distantly related cousins will have tinier matching segments that require sophisticated methods to uncover.Dr. Akey and his colleagues figured out how to search the DNA of living humans and remains of Neanderthals for these minuscule matching segments. Then they pinpointed the segments that came from a relatively recent ancestor — and therefore were a sign of interbreeding. The scientists searched 2,504 genomes of living humans for segments that matched those in a Neanderthal genome. When the scientists tallied up the results, the results took Dr. Akey by surprise.

“The human genome is detailed in units called base pairs, about 3 billion such pairs in total. The scientists found that Europeans on average had 51 million base pairs that matched Neanderthal DNA, and East Asians had 55 million. Dr. Akey’s previous research had indicated that East Asians carried far more Neanderthal ancestry than did Europeans. Africans on average had 17 million base pairs that matched Neanderthal DNA — far higher than predicted by the original models describing how humans and Neanderthals interbred. “That was just so completely opposite to my expectations,” said Dr. Akey. “It took a while to convince ourselves that what we are finding with this new approach was actually true.”

“Looking at the size of these shared segments and how common they were around the world, Dr. Akey and his colleagues realized that some were the result of interbreeding very early in human history. They concluded that a group of modern humans expanded out of Africa perhaps 200,000 years ago and interbred with Neanderthals. Those modern humans then disappeared. But Neanderthals who lived after that disappearance inherited some modern human DNA.. It’s possible that humans and Neanderthals interbred at other times, and not just 200,000 years ago and again 60,000 years ago. But Dr. Akey said that these two migrations accounted for the vast majority of mixed DNA in the genomes of living humans and Neanderthal fossils.

Modern Europeans Originated from a Group 35,000-Year-Old Colonizers?

The ancestry of modern Europeans has been traced back to a single founding group of early humans living in the northwestern Europe about 35,000 years ago. Hannah Osborne wrote in the International Business Times: “Researchers analyzed the DNA from 51 prehistoric Europeans to find migration patterns and population changes over thousands of years. Fossil evidence shows early humans first entered Europe roughly 45,000 years ago. However, little is known about their genetic ancestry before the onset of agriculture, some 8,000 years ago. Between their arrival and agriculture, Europe saw the end of the last Ice Age. Ice sheets that had covered northern Europe and Scandinavia between 25,000 and 19,000 years ago began to retreat.[Source: Hannah Osborne, International Business Times, May 2, 2016]

“A team of scientists, led by Harvard's David Reich, has now carried out the most comprehensive analysis of early European DNA to date. Previously, genetic data on just four prehistoric Europeans was available. "Trying to represent this vast period of European history with just four samples is like trying to summarize a movie with four still images," Reich said.

“Using 51 samples, the team was able to build up a far more extensive view of the changes over time. Findings, published in Nature, showed there were two major population changes in Europe between 45,000 and 7,000 years ago. The upheavals reveal how the Ice Age impacted the migration of populations and modern Europeans came from one founding population that lived in north west Europe roughly 35,000 years ago. This founding group was displaced, however. It was found to have been living in south west Europe 19,000 years ago. As the ice started retreating, this same group spread northwards and repopulated Europe.

“Another massive upheaval took place 14,000 years ago, when populations from the south east, including Turkey and Greece, spread into Europe. Their arrival introduced a new genetic component into modern Europeans. "These results document how population turnover and migration have been recurring themes of European pre-history," the study said. Reich added: "What we see is a population history that is no less complicated than that in the last 7,000 years, with multiple episodes of population replacement and immigration on a vast and dramatic scale, at a time when the climate was changing dramatically."

Early Humans Reached China 80,000 Years Ago, Long Before They Reached Europe

In 2015, Chinese scientists announced they discovered 47 teeth from modern humans in Fuyan Cave in southern China's Hunan province that date back at least 80,000 years. Charles Q. Choi wrote in Live Science, “Teeth from a cave in China suggest that modern humans lived in Asia much earlier than previously thought, and tens of thousands of years before they reached Europe, researchers say...Modern humans first originated about 200,000 years ago in Africa. When and how the modern human lineage dispersed from Africa has long been controversial. Previous research suggested the exodus from Africa began between 70,000 and 40,000 years ago. However, recent research hinted that modern humans might have begun their march across the globe as early as 130,000 years ago. [Source: Charles Q. Choi, Live Science, October 14, 2015]

“One place that could shed light on the spread of humanity is southern China, which is dotted with fossil-rich caves. Scientists analyzed modern human teeth that they unearthed in Fuyan Cave in southern China's Hunan province, which is part of a system of caves more than 32,300 square feet (3,000 square meters) in size. Excavations from 2011 to 2013 yielded a trove of 47 human teeth, as well as bones from many other extinct and living animals, such as pandas, hyenas and pigs. The scientists detailed their findings in the Oct. 15 issue of the journal Nature.

“The researchers found these teeth are more than 80,000 years old, and may date back as far as 120,000 years. Until now, fossils from southern China confirmed as older than 45,000 years in age that can be confidently identified as modern human in origin have been lacking. "Our discovery, together with other research findings, suggests southern China should be the key, central area for the emergence and evolution of modern humans in East Asia," the study's co-lead author, Wu Liu, of China's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, told Live Science.

“These newfound teeth are smaller than counterparts of similar ages from Africa and elsewhere in China. Instead, they more closely resemble teeth from contemporary modern humans. This suggests different kinds of humans were living in China at the same time — archaic kinds in northern China, and ones more like modern humans in southern China.

Early Humans Reached Europe Much Later Than Asia Because of Neanderthals?

Charles Q. Choi wrote in Live Science, “The researchers said these findings could shed light on why modern humans made a relatively late entry into Europe. There is currently no evidence that modern humans entered Europe before 45,000 years ago, even though they made it as far as southern China at least as early as 80,000 years ago. The investigators suggested that Neanderthals might have prevented modern humans from crossing into Europe until after Neanderthals began dying off." The main thing holding scientists back from making further conclusions is that archaeological evidence is lacking from Fuyan Cave and other sites from that period in China. [Source: Charles Q. Choi, Live Science, October 14, 2015]

“"It may be that that Europe was too small for two intelligent and behaviorally complex species that were seeking the same type of resources," study co-lead author María Martinón-Torres at University College London told Live Science. Perhaps Neanderthals faded away after dealing with thousands of years of isolation and harsh winters, and "maybe it was only at that time that Homo sapiens could finally make it into Europe," Martinón-Torres added.

“Still, Neanderthals might not be the main reason for the relatively late entry of modern humans into Europe, said archaeologist Robin Dennell at the University of Exeter in England, who did not take part in this research. Instead, modern humans may have colonized the southern zones of Europe and Asia before the northern zones because the former were warmer than the latter, Dennell wrote in a commentary article in the Oct. 15 issue of Nature.

“The jury is still out on exactly what triggered the dispersal of modern humans. "What is especially needed now is archaeological evidence (sadly lacking in Fuyan Cave) to indicate whether the initial dispersal of our species was caused or facilitated by cognitive developments (such as symbolism or complex exchange systems), or was simply an example of opportunistic range extension," Dennell writes in his commentary, adding that southern China could hold the answer.”

Eve's Daughters and First Modern Humans in Europe, Around 45,000 Years Ago

Earliest evidence of modern humans in Europe and Greece — 45,000 years before present — Mount Parnassus — Geneticist Bryan Sykes identifies 'Ursula' as the first of The Seven Daughters of Eve, and the carrier of the mitochondrial haplogroup U. This hypothetical woman moved between the mountain caves and the coast of Greece, and based on genetic research represent the first human settlement of Europe. [Source: Wikipedia]

In his book “The Seven Daughters Of Eve,” Bryan Sykes, Emeritus Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford, makes a case for his theory that 95 percent of present-day Europeans can trace their ancestry back to just seven individual women, of whom the earliest is “Ursula,” from 45,000 years ago, in present-day Greece. James Meek wrote in The Guardian: “Sykes studies a tiny percentage of human DNA known as mitochondrial DNA, or mDNA, which unlike most of our genes does not get jumbled up between mother and father from generation to generation. MDNA is passed on unchanged from mother to child, time after time, over thousands - in fact, millions - of years. This extraordinary property means that we do, indeed, carry within us a piece of information passed on directly from a maternal ancestor who lived in the world while the Ice Age was at its height. [Source: James Meek, The Guardian, June 11, 2001]

“By comparing mutations in mDNA, which occur spontaneously every 10 millennia or so, it is possible to draw conclusions about the movements of large groups of people over time. It is also possible to identify "clusters" of present-day people with similar sets of mutations, which can be traced back to putative single maternal ancestors in the distant past. That is how Sykes has come up with his seven daughters. He has given them imaginary names and worked out where and when they were likely to have lived.

“There is Ursula, from 45,000 years ago, in present-day Greece; Xenia (25,000, the Caucasus); Helena (20,000, the north-east Pyrenean foothills); Tara (17,000, Tuscany); Velda (17,000, the Basque region); Katrine (15,000, northern Italy) and Jasmine (10,000, the Euphrates valley).”

Gerry Rising wrote: “Based on the genetic differences, Sykes is able to construct European human systematics over the past 45,000 years. And that is where the sisters come in. Originally more formally identified by letters, these older designations are simply assigned by Sykes to female names — U becoming Ursula, X Xenia, and so on. He then further fleshes out these "daughters of eve' to their approximate time and place and builds quite reasonable stories around them based on anthropoligical evidence about the people of t heir times. For example, he begins his first narrative, "Ursula was born into a world very different from our own. Forty-five thousand years ago it was a lot colder than it is today, and would get colder still in the millennia to come leading up to the Great Ice Age. Ursula was born in a shallow cave cut into the cliffs at the foot of what is now Mount Parnassus, close to what was to become the ancient Greek classical site of Delphi."

Humans in the Arctic 45,000 Years Ago?

Ann Gibbons wrote in Science: “In August of 2012, an 11-year-old boy made a gruesome discovery in a frozen bluff overlooking the Arctic Ocean. While exploring the foggy coast of Yenisei Bay, about 2000 kilometers south of the North Pole, he came upon the leg bones of a woolly mammoth eroding out of frozen sediments. Scientists excavating the well-preserved creature determined that it had been killed by humans: Its eye sockets, ribs, and jaw had been battered, apparently by spears, and one spear-point had left a dent in its cheekbone—perhaps a missed blow aimed at the base of its trunk. [Source: Ann Gibbons, Science, January 14, 2016 ^]

“When they dated the remains, the researchers got another surprise: The mammoth died 45,000 years ago. That means that humans lived in the Arctic more than 10,000 years earlier than scientists believed, according to a new study. The find suggests that even at this early stage, humans were traversing the most frigid parts of the globe and had the adaptive ability to migrate almost everywhere. ^

“Most researchers had long thought that big-game hunters, who left a trail of stone tools around the Arctic 12,500 years ago, were the first to reach the Arctic Circle. These cold-adapted hunters apparently traversed Siberia and the Bering Straits at least 15,000 years ago (and new dates suggest humans may have been in the Americas as early as 18,500 years ago). But in 2004, researchers pushed that date further back in time when they discovered beads and stone and bone tools dated to as much as 35,000 years old at several sites in the Ural Mountains of far northeastern Europe and in northern Siberia; they also found the butchered carcasses of woolly mammoths, woolly rhinoceros, reindeer, and other animals. The Russian boy’s discovery—of the best-preserved mammoth found in a century—pushes back those dates by another 10,000 years. A team led by archaeologist Alexei Tikhonov excavated the mammoth and dubbed it “Zhenya,” for the child, Evgeniy Solinder, whose nickname was Zhenya. ^

“The big surprise, though, is the age. Radiocarbon dates on the collagen from the mammoth’s tibia bone, as well as from hair and muscle tissue, produce a direct date of 45,000 years, the team reports online today in Science. This fits with dating of the layer of sediments above the carcass, which suggest it was older than 40,000 years. If correct, this means the mammoth was alive during the heyday of woolly mammoths 42,000 to 44,000 years ago when they roamed the vast open grasslands of the northern steppe of the Siberian Arctic, Pitulko says. Researchers also have dated a thighbone of a modern human to 45,000 years at Ust-Ishim in Siberia, although that was found south of the Arctic at a latitude of 57° north, a bit north (and east) of Moscow. “The dating is compelling. It’s likely older than 40,000,” says Douglas Kennett, an environmental archaeologist who is co-director of the Pennsylvania State University, University Park’s accelerator mass spectrometry facility. However, he would like the Russian team to report the method used to rule out contamination of the bone collagen for dating—and confirmation of the dates on the bone by another lab, because the date is so critical for the significance of this discovery. ^

“Mammoths and other large animals, such as woolly rhinoceros and reindeer, may have been the magnet that drew humans to the Far North. “Mammoth hunting was an important part of survival strategy, not only in terms of food, but in terms of important raw materials—tusks, ivory that they desperately needed to manufacture hunting equipment,” Pitulko says. The presence of humans in the Arctic this early also suggests they had the adaptive ability to make tools, warm clothes, and temporary shelters that allowed them to live in the frigid north earlier than thought. They had to adapt to the cold to traverse Siberia and Beringia on their way to the Bering Strait’s land bridge, which they crossed to enter the Americas. “Surviving at those latitudes requires highly specialized technology and extreme cooperation,” Marean agrees. That implies that these were modern humans, rather than Neandertals or other early members of the human family. “If these hunters could survive in the Arctic Circle 45,000 years ago, they could have lived virtually anywhere on Earth,” says Ted Goebel, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University, College Station.” ^

The find also indicates that early Siberians were 4,660 kilometers (2,895 miles) from what was then a land bridge between modern Russia and Alaska. According to the Siberian Times: “A long distance, for sure, but far from insurmountable, opening the possibility that Stone Age Siberians colonised the Americas at this early point.” [Source: Anna Liesowska siberiantimes.com May 30, 2016]

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery News, Natural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.

Last updated April 2024