Neanderthal migrations

Paleogeneticists have read the oldest mitochondrial genome of an Eastern European Neanderthal

Marina Astvatsaturyan, Echo of Moscow

A Neanderthal man who lived about 80,000 years ago on the territory of Poland discovered genetic similarities with the North Caucasian population of Neanderthals. His large molar was found in 2007 in the Steinja Cave on the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland by archaeologist Mikolaj Urbanowski from the University of Szczecin.

Stone tools and animal bones extracted from the same archaeological layer were dated according to the scale of marine isotopic stages, alternating warm and cool periods in the paleoclimate of the Earth, which are determined by oxygen isotopes. The age of the tooth was estimated between 82,000 and 71,000 years ago. The find was attributed to the archaeological culture of Mikok, which stretched from the Rhone tributary of the Saone River in France to the western shore of the Caspian Sea.

Stone tools of the Middle Paleolithic from the Steinya cave: 1-3 – double–sided tools; 4 – a billet of a double-sided tool; 5-8 - fragments. Drawings from the press release of The oldest Neanderthal DNA of Central-Eastern Europe.

"The tooth from the Steinya cave is really an outstanding discovery that clarifies something in the controversy about the widespread distribution of artifacts of the Mikok culture," says the study's lead author Andrea Picin from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "The morphology of the tooth is typically Neanderthal, and judging by the wear of the crown, it belonged to an adult," adds his co-author Stefano Benazzi from the University of Bologna (Bologna University).

Three-dimensional digital model of the Stajnia S5000 molar.

The analysis of mitochondrial DNA, which was isolated from this tooth, confirms the dating carried out on the accompanying artifacts. These are the oldest Neanderthal remains ever found in central-eastern Europe. The results of the study are presented in the journal Scientific Reports.

"The molecular age of 80,000 years relates the tooth from the Steinya cave to an important period of Neanderthal history, when pronounced seasonality appeared in climatic conditions and some groups of Neanderthals began to settle eastward to Central Asia," the authors write. At first, scientists thought that the tooth was younger because it was found in a more superficial layer, but they also knew that the Stein Cave is a difficult place: the icing that occurred after the deposition of layers caused environmental disturbances and mixing of artifacts between layers. But the genetic analysis put everything in its place. In addition, the maternal-transmitted and rapidly mutating mitochondrial DNA of a Neanderthal from Styni showed his close relationship with the Neanderthals from the Mezmayskaya cave in the Absheron district of the Krasnodar Territory of Russia.

Article by Picin et al. New perspectives on Neanderthal dispersal and turnover from Stajnia Cave (Poland) is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

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