Modern Human Origins in Central Europe

The Hybrid Origin of “Modern” Humans

“…200 kya (McDougall et al 2005;Rightmire 2009), but this occurs in a piecemeal fashion, with a mixture of modern and archaic traits persisting in the fossil record in Africa and the Middle East until after 35 kya (Bräuer 2008;Rightmire 2009), and with many of the taxa listed above containing individuals with such mixed morphology. Indeed, in Europe in the late Pleistocene, where the densest record of multiple forms of ancient humans exists, this is especially evident, with largely modern skeletal remains sometimes exhibiting isolated Neanderthal-like features, and vice versa (Duarte et al 1999;Trinkaus 2007;Ramirez Rozzi et al 2009;Ahern et al 2013;Smith 2013). Additionally, evidence for mild developmental disruptions and novel traits consistent with hybridization exist in one region of the world where Neanderthals and migrating Africans would have met and interbred (Ackermann 2010;Ackermann et al 2006Ackermann et al , 2014.…”

Archaic Homo

“…European Late Archaics are generally associated with Middle Paleolithic assemblages (in particular, the Mousterian), although some late ones are associated with early Upper Paleolithic ones (Hublin, 2013;Ahern et al, 2013).…”

The Assimilation Model of modern human origins in light of current genetic and genomic knowledge

“…Beginning during the 1990s, RAO and MRE underwent modifications to their initial versions, as is expected with scientific models. AM has undergone modifications as well, particularly in emphasizing that the evidence for regional continuity was fundamentally observable in anatomical details rather overall anatomical form and that the archaic contributions, though relatively small, were not insignificant (Smith, 1994;Smith et al, 2005;Ahern et al, 2013). Another change in AM thinking has concerned the interpretation of the role of critical fossil specimens and samples within the framework of modern human origins.…”

“…For example, the Vindija late Neandertal sample from Croatia and the Klasies River Mouth hominins from South Africa were long argued to represent samples reflecting intermediate morphological stages between more archaic hominin samples and unequivocally modern ones (Smith, 1984(Smith, , 1994Smith et al, 1989). With the improved chronological framework available at the current time and the implications of that framework, it can be argued that both the Vindija and Klasies samples result from the assimilation of modern human elements into a fundamentally archaic hominin population, as in the case of the Vindija Neandertals (Smith et al, 2005;Cartmill and Smith, 2009;Jankovi c et al, 2011;Ahern et al, 2013) or archaic elements into a more modern one, as in Klasies (Cartmill and Smith, 2009;Smith et al, 2012).…”