KNM-LH 1 and other Pleistocene African specimens, all of which are potentially sampling candidate populations for dispersals across and out of Africa during the Late Pleistocene (12–15, 50, 59), differ substantially not only from recent Africans but also from individuals drawn from Holocene LSA archaeological sites. KNM-LH 1 and other Pleistocene African specimens (found with MSA and LSA artifacts) are also distinct from most EUP individuals.Things are looking good for my Afrasian-Palaeoafrican admixture hypothesis which postulates that modern Africans are a mixture of "Afrasians" (a group of humans that also spilled over into Eurasia and/or back-migrated to Africa) and various groups of very divergent "Palaeoafrican" populations. In the context of this hypothesis, greater African genetic diversity is understood not as the result of a bottleneck of epic proportions during Out-of-Africa, but rather as a result of admixture between the two groups.
PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1417909112
Late Pleistocene age and archaeological context for the hominin calvaria from GvJm-22 (Lukenya Hill, Kenya)
Christian A. Tryon et al.
Kenya National Museums Lukenya Hill Hominid 1 (KNM-LH 1) is a Homo sapiens partial calvaria from site GvJm-22 at Lukenya Hill, Kenya, associated with Later Stone Age (LSA) archaeological deposits. KNM-LH 1 is securely dated to the Late Pleistocene, and samples a time and region important for understanding the origins of modern human diversity. A revised chronology based on 26 accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates on ostrich eggshells indicates an age range of 23,576–22,887 y B.P. for KNM-LH 1, confirming prior attribution to the Last Glacial Maximum. Additional dates extend the maximum age for archaeological deposits at GvJm-22 to >46,000 y B.P. (>46 kya). These dates are consistent with new analyses identifying both Middle Stone Age and LSA lithic technologies at the site, making GvJm-22 a rare eastern African record of major human behavioral shifts during the Late Pleistocene. Comparative morphometric analyses of the KNM-LH 1 cranium document the temporal and spatial complexity of early modern human morphological variability. Features of cranial shape distinguish KNM-LH 1 and other Middle and Late Pleistocene African fossils from crania of recent Africans and samples from Holocene LSA and European Upper Paleolithic sites.
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