Late Neandertals and Early Modern Humans in Europe, Population Dynamics and Paleobiology

Abstract

On the sesquicentennial of the discovery at the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte, it is appropriate to reassess the nature of the biological transition between late Neandertals and the earliest modern humans in Europe. An assessment of the latter sample shows a predominantly modern human morphological pattern, but the persistent and varied presence of distinctive Neandertal features and/or archaic traits lost or rare in the ancestral Mid Upper Paleolithic modern humans. These traits includee variably present marked frontal flattening, large occipital buns, large juxtamastoid eminences, suprainiac fossae, wide mandibular rami, asymmetrical mandibular notch, medial notch position, mandibular foramen bridging, molar megadontia and incisor shoveling. Moreover, the later European Mid Upper Paleolithic (Gravettian) sample exhibits persistence of some of these and other Neandertal/archaic features. These combine to indicate a non-trivial Neandertal contribution to the gene pools of the early modern humans in Europe. At the same time, paleobiological assessment of late Neandertals and early modern humans in Europe indicates a mosaic of functional anatomical changes, involving the faces, humeri and femora of late Neandertals and the dentition, scapula, femora and talus of early modern humans. These data combine to indicate that the period between the Middle Paleolithic Neandertals and the Mid Upper Paleolithic modern humans was a complex mosaic in terms of population dynamics and behavioral patterns. Simple models of an abrupt behavioral and phylogenetic transition for this period in Europe should be abandoned.