Suchergebnisse

Perceptions of the emergence and spread of modern humans have changed recently through the reanalysis of fossils, an improved geochronological framework, and the discovery of a few specimens. Early modern humans in various portions of the Old World exhibit complex and varying mosaics of archaic, modern, and regional morphological characteristics. On the basis of this pattern, in conjunction with the emerging chronology of the earliest modern humans, the paleontological data indicate an assimilation model for modern human origins, in which the earliest modern humans emerged in eastern Africa, dispersed briefly into southwestern Asia, and then subsequently spread into the remainder of Africa and southern Asia, eventually into higher latitude Eurasia. The earliest modern humans outside of the core area of eastern Africa can be understood only if a variable degree of admixture with regional groups of late archaic humans occurred. Current and expected fossil and molecular data are unlikely to illuminate the degree of assimilation that took place in most regions of the Old World. However, the current chronological and phylogenetic framework provides the basis for ongoing investigation of the nature of this Late Pleistocene transitional period.

The rich earlier Mid Upper Palaeolithic (Pavlovian) sites of Dolní
Vĕstonice I and II and Pavlov I (∼32,000–∼30,000 cal
BP) in southern Moravia (Czech Republic) have yielded a series of human burials,
isolated pairs of extremities and isolated bones and teeth. The burials occurred
within and adjacent to the remains of structures ('huts'), among
domestic debris. Two of them were adjacent to mammoth bone dumps, but none of
them was directly associated with areas of apparent discard (or garbage). The
isolated pairs and bones/teeth were haphazardly scattered through the occupation
areas, many of them mixed with the small to medium-sized faunal remains, from
which many were identified post-excavation. It is therefore difficult to
establish a pattern of disposal of the human remains with respect to the
abundant evidence for site structure at these Upper Palaeolithic sites. At the
same time, each form of human preservation raises questions about the
differential mortuary behaviours, and hence social dynamics, of these foraging
populations and how we interpret them through an archaeological lens.