The transit of a Europe dominated by Neanderthals (Homo Neanderthalensis) to a world in which our species, H. sapiensit was already the only human species is one of the most intriguing periods in our evolutionary history. We do not know how Neanderthals disappeared nor do we have many details about how they coexisted with our species.
It is not necessary to go very far to find clues about how this coexistence was.
Arlanzian culture. An international team, in which researchers from the universities of Valladolid, Burgos or Alcalá participated, recently discovered the clues of a prehistoric culture that had passed so far unnoticed. A culture they have called Arlanziense.
This prehistoric culture has been baptized Ashí in reference to the Arlanza River, in whose Valley is Cueva Millán (located in the municipality of Hortigüela, Burgos). It is in this cave where the site that the Arlanzian culture has gone to the discovery can be found.
The period associated with this prehistoric cultural tradition, explains the team responsible for the study, is associated with the transition between the Middle Paleolithic and the Superior, which occurred between 50,000 and 40,000 years ago. This period is marked precisely by another very different transition, which saw the Neanderthals of the European continent disappear and the passage to the era of modern humans.
Jump in time. Until now the clues we had placed this change in a much more recent period. Until now, the first cultures of the Upper Paleolithic (Auriñaciense and Châtelperroniense) dated a period between 43,000 and 40,000 years ago. The disappearance of the Musteriense culture, which we consider typical of the Middle Paleolithic, would have occurred between 45,000 and 37,000 years ago.
However, the findings in the Cueva Millán force us to delay even more this transitional period between the Middle and Higher Paleolithic, after finding evidence of a culture with features of the Paleolithic medium before the Auriñaciense and Châtelperroniense: the findings would place it between 43,000 and 40,000 years ago.
Unique combination The team responsible for the study explains that the artifacts found in the Cueva Millán site and the techniques associated with its production allow to “define” this new culture. A clulture, the Arlanziense, whose features highlight the “standardized production of small stone projectiles for hunting.”
The details of the study were published in an article in the magazine Scientific Reports.
Doubts to be resolved. The transition from the Middle Paleolithic to the superior is traditionally marked by the arrival of the H. sapiens But the responsible team indicates that the story can be somewhat more complex. As indicated, the site cannot be associated with one or another species, which opens the door to the possibility that the Neanderthals had adopted techniques and objects of the sapiens. Although we do not have concrete evidence, this would be a plausible hypothesis in that case.
Transition between species. The Millán Cueva Site and its Arlanzian culture could help us understand not only the transition but also the coexistence of humans and Neanderthals in the Iberian Peninsula. We know that coexistence between both species globally left a genetic imprint that still endures in ours, and we have found vestiges of this hybridization in other places of the Peninsula.
In WorldOfSoftware | If the question is “when the Neanderthals and the Sapiens were crossed,” we now have the answer: about 47,000 years ago
Image | University of Valladolid
