Lower jaw of Mezzena
The lower jaw of Mezzena , also called the lower jaw of the Riparo Mezzena , is an edentulous lower jaw fragment of an anatomically modern human being ( Homo sapiens ), which was discovered in 1957 in the Abri Riparo Mezzena in the Monti Lessini of the north-eastern Italian region of Veneto . From all three distinguishable find horizons of this cave stone utensils were recovered that came from the Moustérien , a culture that is associated with the Neanderthals . In 1968 the lower jaw fragment (archive number GVR 203334) was therefore also assigned to the Neanderthals. However, a direct dating of the lower jaw and other bone finds published in 2016 using the radiocarbon method revealed an age of at most 6400 years ( cal BP ) and consequently an origin of the fossil from the Neolithic Age .
In 2012, a radiocarbon dating of the lowest find horizon was published, which seemed to confirm the previously suspected old age and the assignment of the fossils to Moustérien: the bone of a cattle was assigned an age of 34,540 ± 655 years (uncal BP), which was a calibration Age of 39,870 to 38,420 years and gave rise to the question whether Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans could have lived in the Veneto region at the same time. In 2013 it was also argued that the striking anatomical similarities of the lower jaw with those of an anatomically modern person could be an indication that the individual from whom the lower jaw originated was a hybrid of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens . This assumption was also refuted in 2016, because at the same time as the direct dating of the lower jaw, an analysis of its mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) was published, which only provided evidence of an origin of Homo sapiens (“authentic ancient mtDNA of the modern human type”).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cleto Corrain: Resti del scheletrici umani "Riparo Mezzena" . In: Memorie del Museo di Scienze Naturali di Verona. Volume 16, 1968, pp. 97-101.
- ↑ Sahra Talamo, Mateja Hajdinjak, Marcello A. Mannino, Leone Fasani, Frido Welker, Fabio Martini, Francesca Romagnoli, Roberto Zorzin, Matthias Meyer and Jean-Jacques Hublin : Direct radiocarbon dating and genetic analyzes on the purported Neanderthal mandible from the Monti Lessini (Italy). In: Scientific Reports. Online publication of July 8, 2016, doi: 10.1038 / srep29144
- ↑ Laura Longo, Elisabetta Boaretto, David Caramelli, Paolo Giunti, Martina Lari et al .: Did Neandertals and anatomically modern humans coexist in northern Italy during the late MIS 3? In: Quaternary International. Volume 259, 2012, pp. 102-112, doi: 10.1016 / j.quaint.2011.08.008
- ↑ Silvana Condemi, Aurèlien Mounie, Paolo Giunti, Martina Lari, David Caramelli, Laura Longo: Possible Interbreeding in Late Italian Neanderthals? New Data from the Mezzena Jaw (Monti Lessini, Verona, Italy) . In: PLoS ONE. 8.3 (2013), doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0059781