Mezmaiskaya cave
Mezmaiskaya Cave (Мезмайская пещера) is a cave overlooking the right bank of the Sukhoi Kurdzhips (a small tributary of the Kurdzhips River) in the southern Russian Republic of Adygea, located in the northwestern foothills of the North Caucasus in the Caucasus Mountains System.
Archaeology
Neanderthal
Preliminary excavations in Mezmaiskaya cave recovered Mousterian artifacts, dated to about 35,000 B.P. and older, in the middle of the last glacial period.[1] [2][3] [4][5][6]
However, a rib fragment from the partial skeleton of a Neanderthal infant found in the cave was radiocarbon-dated to 29,195 ± 965 B.P., and therefore belonging to the latest lived Neanderthals. The value obtained from the bone itself rather than from associated material gives the most reliable date for this individual.
Ancient DNA was recovered for a mtDNA sequence showing 3.48% divergence from that of the Feldhofer Neanderthal, some 2,500 km to the west in Germany. Phylogenetic analysis places the two in a clade distinct from modern humans, suggesting that their mtDNA types have not contributed to the modern human mtDNA pool.[7]
Fauna
Faunal remains show a very low degree of weathering, with many bones having traces of stone tool cuts and carnivore modification. The most common large mammals are steppe bison (Bison priscus), Caucasian goat (Capra caucasica), and Asiatic mouflon (Ovis orientalis). Reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) remains were encountered for the first time in the Caucasus.
Although most of the smaller vertebrate remains appear to have been accumulated by nonhuman processes (for example, owl predation), the majority of the ungulate remains probably represent animals hunted by the Mousterian era occupants of the cave.[8][9]
Analysis of the animal bones found here revealed that during the middle and late Paleolithic four different kinds of buffalo lived in the vicinity of [10]
Description
The cave entrance is a hole in the cliff several meters high, behind which the course is narrowed to a few meters, but almost all along remains quite high. Within a few tens of meters of the entrance to the cave, the floor is transformed from rocky to clay.
Geology
Evidence recovered from the cave suggests that a Campanian ignimbrite volcanic super-eruption around 40,000 years ago may have been a setback for the Neanderthal, with an as yet only postulated eruption contributing to their demise about 29,000 years ago.[11][12]
See also
References
- ↑ L. V. Golovanova, John F. Hoffecker, V. M. Kharitonov and G. P. Romanova , Mezmaiskaya Cave: A Neanderthal Occupation in the Northern Caucasus Current Anthropology Vol. 40, No. 1 (February 1999), pp. 77-86 .
- ↑ John Hawks and Milford H. Wolpoff, Brief Communication: Paleoanthropology and thePopulation Genetics of Ancient Genes AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 114:269–272 (2001) page 269-272.
- ↑ L. V. Golovanova, John F. Hoffecker, V. M. Kharitonov, and G. P. Romanova, Mezmaiskaya Cave: A Neanderthal Occupation in the Northern Caucasus, Current Anthropology Volume 40, Number 1 | February 1999 73.
- ↑ Есть вопросы? 21 февраля петербуржцы смогут задать их нашим Экспертам лично.
- ↑ Скелет новорожденного неандертальца проливает свет на эволюцию рода Homo.
- ↑ mtDNA of Okladnikov Neandertal PNAS February 11, 2014 vol. 111 no. 6 .
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- ↑ Ни о каких контактах неандертальцев и сапиенсов в Европе говорить не приходится.
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