Nesher Ramla

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Nesher Ramla is an archaeological and paleoanthropological site in the southeast of Ramla , at the transition from the western Judean mountains to the Mediterranean coastal plain, in the center of Israel . Nesher Ramla is located in a limestone quarry owned by Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises Ltd. and has been researched since 2010. The site is a karst funnel filled with meter-thick sediments , which was created by the Israel Antiquities Authoritywas discovered and secured when it was planned to mine the rock. The karst funnel was used in the period between around 160,000 to 120,000 years before today (BP), mainly by stone tools , as a place of residence in the Levant for groups of people moving about . A study published in 2021 reported on the discovery of hominine fossils with pronounced archaic features, on the basis of which they were neither assigned to the Neanderthals nor to the early anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ), but were referred to as "Nesher-Ramla-Homo".

Discovery of the site

Before the planned limestone extraction began, a layer of clay around 12 meters thick was dredged away from the site, under which a funnel-shaped depression 40 to 50 meters wide at the upper edge was visible. When this depression was also cleared, a first layer of stone tools and animal bones was found under the upper edge of the funnel at a depth of around 20 meters ; the diameter of the karst funnel was around 40 meters at this depth. In 2010 and 2011, the 8-meter-thick layers - 450 cubic meters of excavated material - that were influenced by the people living there at times were completely removed as part of a rescue excavation .

Dating the stone tools

A special feature of this site is that the layers and the stone tools lying in them lie undisturbed on top of each other, because the depression was only filled gradually and not - as is often observed in caves - was disturbed by falling rock; for this reason, inter alia the chronological sequence of the smallest changes in the teeing techniques during their production can be reconstructed. The density of finds of stone tools was greater in the lower layers than in the higher layers and consisted of typical artifacts of the Levallois technique of the Middle Paleolithic . The time of the most intensive use of the area was 170,000 to 140,000 years ago.

Hominin fossils

In June 2021, the journal Science announced the discovery of several presumably related hominine finds that are 140,000 to 120,000 years old. The fossil Nesher Ramla 1 (NR-1) consists of a completely preserved right parietal bone and four fragments of the left parietal bone. Although the four fragments and the right parietal bone have no direct connection with each other, due to the weathering features of all fragments, their association is considered certain. The Fossil NR-2 is a "robust" lower jaw, the joints of which are missing on both sides and of whose teeth only the left 2nd molar and the roots of the remaining teeth are present; the lower jaw broke into several parts in the course of the emergency excavation, but these could be put back together again. Both fossils were found about three meters apart, but according to the authors of the study they are believed to belong to the same individual.

A comparison of the parietal bones with other fossils of the genus Homo showed that NR-1 has typical characteristics of an individual from the Middle Pleistocene, which differ significantly from the characteristics of today's and early Homo sapiens . The bones are also thicker than those of the Neanderthals. In contrast, a similarity is seen with the fossil Petralona 1 discovered in Greece , which is believed to be related to Homo heidelbergensis . In the synopsis it is noted by the authors that NR-1 occupies an intermediate position between the Neanderthals and the Middle Pleistocene populations of the genus Homo (this includes in particular Homo erectus and Homo heidelbergensis ). According to the authors, the characteristics of NR-1 resemble certain fossils whose phylogenetic position is far back in the past - around 400,000 years ago, in an era before the populations of Homo erectus were separated into the African branch leading to Homo sapiens and the European branch leading to Homo heidelbergensis and the Neanderthals. For the lower jaw NR-2 and the very large molar M2, the comparison with other fossils also showed that both are to be classified outside the range of variation of Homo sapiens and that their features are more in line with the Central Pleistocene inhabitants of Europe - the Neanderthals. This means at the same time that the characteristics of NR-2 also differ from those of Homo erectus and that the Nesher Ramla finds can be interpreted as an independent group (“Nesher Ramla Homo”); an allocation to Homo heidelbergensis was because of differences with the type specimen of homo species, the lower jaw of wall not possible.

The authors of the comparative anatomical examination of NR-1 and NR-2 come to the conclusion that - apparently - around 130,000 years ago in the area of ​​today's Levant an archaic population of the genus Homo existed alongside the Nesher Ramla - Finds may also have belonged to previously controversial finds from the Qesem Cave , from the Zuttiyeh Cave and from the Tabun Cave . Since anatomically modern humans also lived in the same area at the same time, a gene flow from this archaic population to Homo sapiens cannot be ruled out. In this context, the analysis of the stone tools that were found in the same layer as the Nesher Ramla fossils and that can be assigned to these as originators is also noteworthy: Their manufacturing technology does not differ from that found associated with comparable ancient fossils of Homo sapiens were. This was interpreted as an indication of a cultural exchange between the two populations.

In an accompanying article in Science , the paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology was quoted as saying that the finds could also have been a regional variant of the Neanderthals, because the tooth - the most important clue for diagnosing a fossil Art - look like a Neanderthal tooth.

More finds

At the beginning of 2021, researchers from the group led by excavation manager Yossi Zaidner presented the discovery of an engraved animal bone in a specialist journal. The approximately ten centimeter long bone fragment of an aurochs has six parallel, four centimeter long incision tracks , which were ascribed an age of around 120,000 years. The object is considered to be the oldest evidence of an abstract change of objects in the Levant by people from the Middle Paleolithic. In an accompanying article, Zaidner explained that the karst funnel was probably used repeatedly as a storage place or meeting place for Paleolithic hunters, who cut up their prey there.

There was also evidence of repeated and frequent setting up of fireplaces.

literature

  • Yossi Zaidner et al .: Landscapes, depositional environments and human occupation at Middle Paleolithic open-air sites in the southern Levant, with new insights from Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Quaternary Science Reviews. Volume 138, 2016, pp. 76-86, doi: 10.1016 / j.quascirev.2016.02.016 .
  • Marion Prévost and Yossi Zaidner: New insights into early MIS 5 lithic technological behavior in the Levant: Nesher Ramla, Israel as a case study. In: PLoS ONE. Volume 15, No. 4, e0231109, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0231109 .
  • Eduardo Paixão et al .: The Middle Paleolithic ground stones tools of Nesher Ramla unit V (Southern Levant): A multi-scale use-wear approach for assessing the assemblage functional variability. In: Quaternary International. Online advance publication from June 11, 2021, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2021.06.009 .

Web links

supporting documents

  1. ↑ David E. Friesem, Yossi Zaidner and Ruth Shahack-Gross: Formation processes and combustion features at the lower layers of the Middle Palaeolithic open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Quaternary International. Volume 331, 2014, pp. 128-138, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2013.03.023 , full text.
  2. ↑ Yossi Zaidner et al .: An open-air site at Ramla Nesher, Israel, and New Insights into Levantine Middle Paleolithic Technology and Site Use. In: Yoshihiro Nishiaki and Takeru Akazawa (Eds.): The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archeology of the Levant and Beyond. Springer Nature Singapore, 2018, pp. 11–33, full text.
  3. ↑ Yossi Zaidner and Leore Grosman: Middle Paleolithic sidescrapers were resharped or recycled? A view from Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Quaternary International. Volume 361, 2015, pp. 178-187, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2014.11.037 .
  4. ↑ Laura Centi and Yossi Zaidner: The Levallois Flaking System in Nesher Ramla Upper Sequence. In: Journal of Paleolithic Archeology. Volume 4, Article No. 9, 2021, doi: 10.1007 / s41982-021-00088-3 .
  5. ↑ Yossi Zaidner et al .: A series of Mousterian occupations in a new type of site: The Nesher Ramla karst depression, Israel. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 66, 2014, pp. 1–17, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2013.06.005 , full text .
  6. ^ Israel Hershkovitz et al .: A Middle Pleistocene Homo from Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Science . Volume 372, No. 6549, 2021, pp. 1424-1428, doi: 10.1126 / science.abh3169 .
    Illustration of the two fossils fitted into the x-ray of a skull. On: eurekalert.org from June 24, 2021.
  7. ↑ Marta Mirazón Lahr: The complex landscape of recent human evolution. In: Science. Volume 372, No. 6549, 2021, pp. 1395-1396, doi: 10.1126 / science.abj3077 .
  8. ↑ Yossi Zaidner et al .: Middle Pleistocene Homo behavior and culture at 140,000 to 120,000 years ago and interactions with Homo sapiens. In: Science. Volume 372, No. 6549, 2021, pp. 1429-1433, doi: 10.1126 / science.abh3020 .
  9. ^ New fossils reveal a strange-looking Neanderthal in Israel. On: sciencemag.org from June 24, 2021.
  10. ^ Marion Prévost et al .: Early evidence for symbolic behavior in the Levantine Middle Paleolithic: A 120 ka old engraved aurochs bone shaft from the open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Quaternary International. Online advance publication of January 20, 2021, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2021.01.002 . Illustration.
  11. ↑ Archaeologists uncover evidence of the oldest human use of symbols. On: mfa.gov.il from February 3, 2021.
  12. ↑ Alyssa Victoria Pietraszek, Yossi Zaidner and Ruth Shahack-Gross: The distribution and treatment of fire remains across Unit V of the Middle Paleolithic open-air site of Nesher Ramla, Israel. In: Quaternary International. Online advance publication of March 25, 2021, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2021.03.027 .
  13. ↑ Ethel Allué and Yossi Zaidner: The charcoal assemblage from Nesher Ramla, Israel: A contribution to the paleo-environmental dataset from Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 in the Levant. In: Quaternary International. Online advance publication May 6, 2021, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2021.04.025 .

Coordinates: 31 ° 54 ′ 28.4 "  N , 34 ° 55 ′ 42.6"  E