First Homo erectus from Turkey and implications for migrations into temperate Eurasia

Abstract

Remains of fossil hominins from temperate regions of the Old World are rare across both time and space, but such specimens are necessary for understanding basic issues in human evolution including linkages between their adaptations and early migration patterns. We report here the remarkable circumstances surrounding the discovery of the first fossil hominin calvaria from Turkey. The specimen was found in the Denizli province of western Turkey and recovered from within a solid block of travertine stone as it was being sawed into tile-sized slabs for the commercial natural stone building market. The new specimen fills an important geographical and temporal gap and displays several anatomical features that are shared with other Middle Pleistocene hominins from both Africa and Asia attributed to Homo erectus. It also preserves an unusual pathology on the endocranial surface of the frontal bone that is consistent with a diagnosis of Leptomeningitis tuberculosa (TB), and this evidence represents the most ancient example of this disease known for a fossil human. TB is exacerbated in dark-skinned peoples living in northern latitudes by a vitamin D deficiency because of reduced levels of ultraviolet radiation (UVR). Evidence for TB in the new specimen supports the thesis that reduced UVR was one of the many climatic variables presenting an adaptive challenge to ancient hominins during their migration into the temperate regions of Europe and Asia.

A new genus and species of Muridae (Rodentia) from the Quaternary deposits of the Denizli Basin, South-western Turkey

“…The depressional field travertines yielded scarce vertebrate fossils in some quarried locali- ties. There are various studies on these fossils (Erten et al, 2005;Kappelman et al, 2008;Boulbes et al, 2014). These travertines in Denizli (Turkey), where Homo erectus was also found, were dated by Lebatard et al (2014) at least 1.1 Ma.…”

“…apolloniensis, Metacervoceros rhenanus, Palaeotragus sp., Bovinae gen. and indeterminate bovines. Furthermore, Kappelman et al (2008) has described the first Homo erectus from Turkey in the same travertine area. 2 Moreover, related to the micromammalian fauna from these sites, a new genus and species has been found as a result of this post-doctoral research in the Gökpınar locality (GOP), which was dated as MNQ18-19 (1.5-2.6 Ma) (Erten et al, 2015).…”

Advances in tuberculosis

“…The earliest evidence for TB disease in hominins dates back to about 500,000 years before present in Homo erectus fossils was found in Turkey (Kappelman et al, 2008). However, the strength of this bioarchaeological evidence is still disputed (Roberts et al, 2009).…”

Palaeoanthropology: Disputed ground

“…When work does proceed, research ers rarely publish in a timely manner, and they keep their specimens stored for years. To date, there has been only one full publication on an archaic human discovered in Turkey 1 .…”