Indonesia ͉ microcephaly ͉ skeletal pathology ͉ asymmetry ͉ dentition

The replacement theory of modern human origins stipulates that populations outside of Africa were replaced by a new African species of modern humans. Here we test the replacement theory in two peripheral areas far from Africa by examining the ancestry of early modern Australians and Central Europeans. Analysis of pairwise differences was used to determine if dual ancestry in local archaic populations and earlier modern populations from the Levant and/or Africa could be rejected. The data imply that both have a dual ancestry. The diversity of recent humans cannot result exclusively from a single Late Pleistocene dispersal.

N A FIELD OFTEN ACCUSED of being unable to settle controversies or resolve competing I hypotheses, the recent proposal based on interpretations of mitochondria1 DNA (mtDNA) allows for the unambiguous testing of two models about the origin of modern Homo sapiens. These are the total replacement ("Eve") and the continuity (multiregional evolution) models, both of which have clearly definable, completely different predictions about the pattern ofpast evolution, as well as different expectations about the distribution of certain grade (modernizing) and clade (regional, such as African, North Asian, etc.) features in the human fossil record. Since proponents of both views recognize that the fossil record is real, and the two competing interpretations of prehistory have non-overlapping predictions about the modern human origins, specific aspects of each model can be weighed against the fossil record for potential refutation. Here, fossils are not used to develop interpretations of the human evolutionary pattern, a thankless task whose success is very sensitive to the completeness of the fossil record. Instead, limited conflicting predictions of these two models can be addressed from a circumscribed data set, which the fossil record clearly provides. Unlike an earlier controversy between the genetic and fossil reconstruction of the past concerning the timing of the split between humans and chimpanzees, the current debate about the origin of modern Homo sapiens is represented by a much more extensive fossil record, spanning a reasonably well dated time period and supplemented by extensive archeological data.Using the prehistoric skeletal data of Australasia (Southeast Asia and Australia), North Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Levant, we test the conflicting predictions of these two models by evaluating evidence for the existence of transitional samples and the persistence of morphological and metric features over time and space. While many previous and some current models about the later aspects of human evolution are riddled with untestable or non-excluding hypotheses, the differences between the "Eve" and the multiregional evolution models are so profound it is impossible for both to be correct. These differences in theoretical expectations relate to the requirements of the Eve theory that a single source of all contemporary mtDNA variation exists and that this source is derived exclusively from a relatively recent African female (Eve). In this article we review the predictions of the Eve and the multiregional evolution models and test these against the human fossil record from the Old World. In addition, we will show that, while an extreme replacement interpretation is unsupportable, the rntDNA data can be reconciled with the fossil record within the context of multiregional evolution.American Anthropologist 95( 1): 14-50.

We describe eight, mostly complete white-tailed eagle (Haliaëtus [Haliaeetus] albicilla) talons from the Krapina Neandertal site in present-day Croatia, dating to approximately 130 kyrs ago. Four talons bear multiple, edge-smoothed cut marks; eight show polishing facets and/or abrasion. Three of the largest talons have small notches at roughly the same place along the plantar surface, interrupting the proximal margin of the talon blade. These features suggest they were part of a jewelry assemblage, --- the manipulations a consequence of mounting the talons in a necklace or bracelet. An associated phalanx articulates with one of the talons and has numerous cut marks, some of which are smoothed. These white-tailed eagle bones, discovered more than 100 years ago, all derive from a single level at Krapina and represent more talons than found in the entire European Mousterian period. Presence of eight talons indicates that the Krapina Neandertals acquired and curated eagle talons for some kind of symbolic purpose. Some have argued that Neandertals lacked symbolic ability or copied this behavior from modern humans. These remains clearly show that the Krapina Neandertals made jewelry well before the appearance of modern humans in Europe, extending ornament production and symbolic activity early into the European Mousterian.

No abstract