The Romanian “Cioclovina calvaria”: a mythical hybrid?

[Jacques Cinq-Mars]

For your information.

Have a look HERE at the News in Science article and find, below, the abstract of the actual article.

You will note (from the News in Science article) that the “calvaria” in question is quite young, relatively speaking, and that all the commentators are strong supporters of a late OoA scnenario. I would have liked to read comments from other sources.

Katerina Harvati, Philipp Gunz, and Dan Grigorescu. 2007. Cioclovina (Romania): Affinities of an early modern European. Journal of Human Evolution xx:1-15

Abstract:

The current modern human origins debate centers on the possibility and degree of admixture between indigenous archaic humans and modern human populations migrating out of Africa into Europe and Asia in the Late Pleistocene. Evidence for such admixture must be sought in the earliest fossil record of modern humans outside Africa, as it is those populations that would have encountered, and possibly interbred with, archaic hominins. In the case of Europe, the recent application of direct dating techniques has eliminated several specimens from the Upper Paleolithic fossil record, while confirming early ages for others. Among these earliest reliably dated specimens is the Cioclovina calvaria from Romania. This individual is of highest importance for the understanding of modern human origins in Europe, and has recently been proposed to represent a Neanderthal-modern human hybrid. We present a short description and a three-dimensional (3D) geometric morphometric analysis of the Cioclovina specimen using a large geographic sample of recent humans, Neanderthals and Middle and Late Pleistocene fossil hominins from Europe, Africa, and the Levant, in order to establish its phenetic affinities and to evaluate its morphology for evidence of admixture between Neanderthals and early modern Europeans. Our results show Cioclovina to be entirely modern in its cranial shape, and do not support the hypothesis that it represents a hybrid.

Keywords: Neanderthals; Upper Paleolithic; Early modern humans; Admixture; Modern human origins; Hybrids; Geometric morphometrics

Jacques

[Robert Henvell]

Jacques,
Vaguely remember reading an article,which suggested that the Neanderthals had vacated southern Germany and a number of adjacent countries during a cold Heinrich event and that they had not returned to the region,when Homo sapiens moved into southern Germany.There was a hiatus in cave occupation at a number of sites between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens utilization.If this is correct,Romania might not be the best
to search for evidence of a hybrid,because the species may not have encountered each other in this region??

[lagarvelho]

Robert:

A lot depends.  For one thing, it depends on what, and how, they measured the calvaria.  Also, as Jacques points out, the authors are all strong supporters of OoA, so I would imagine that they would tend, where measurement might fall into tha "ambiguous" category, to come down on the side of "less" or "no" admixture.  Note that this does not mean that they did not do good research or tests; just that their frame of reference might be different --- and therefore the questions they "ask" of the specimen might be different, than those of somebody who might have somewhat different views.  So, quite frankly, I don't know what this means.  Furthermore, some months down the line, I have a feeling somebody will come up with something else that seems to show "hybridizatin" in some early "modern" population.
Anne G

Jacques,
Vaguely remember reading an article,which suggested that the Neanderthals had vacated southern Germany and a number of adjacent countries during a cold Heinrich event and that they had not returned to the region,when Homo sapiens moved into southern Germany.There was a hiatus in cave occupation at a number of sites between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens utilization.If this is correct,Romania might not be the best
to search for evidence of a hybrid,because the species may not have encountered each other in this region??