This undated picture supplied by Ludovic Slimak reveals scientists working on the entrance of the Mandrin cave, close to Montelimar, southern France. (Ludovic Slimak through AP)
BERLIN --
A hillside dwelling overlooking the picturesque Rhone Valley in southern France proved irresistible for our ancestors, attracting each Neanderthals and fashionable people lengthy earlier than the latter have been thought to have reached that a part of Europe, a brand new examine suggests.
In a paper revealed Wednesday by the journal Science Advances, researchers from Europe and the USA described discovering fossilized homo sapiens stays and instruments sandwiched between these of Neanderthals within the Mandrin Grotto, named after an 18th-century French people hero.
"The findings present archaeological proof that these hominin cousins could have coexisted in the identical area of Europe throughout the identical time interval," the group stated.
Utilizing new methods, the authors dated a number of the human stays to about 54,000 years in the past -- virtually 10,000 years sooner than earlier finds in Europe, with one exception in Greece.
"This considerably deepens the identified age of the colonization of Europe by fashionable people," stated Michael Petraglia, an professional on prehistory at Germany's Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human Historical past.
Petraglia, who was not concerned within the examine, stated it had main implications for understanding the unfold of contemporary people and our interactions with the Neanderthals.
The researchers stated they spent greater than 30 years fastidiously sifting by layers of dust contained in the cave, which is 140 kilometers (87 miles) north of the French Mediterranean metropolis of Marseille. They found tons of of 1000's of artifacts that they have been in a position to attribute to both Neanderthals or fashionable people. These included superior stone instruments generally known as "factors" that have been utilized by homo sapiens -- our closest ancestors -- to chop or scrape and as spear suggestions.
Related instruments from virtually the very same interval have been discovered some 3,000 kilometers (almost 1,900 miles) away, in present-day Lebanon, indicating that fashionable people with a standard tradition could have traveled throughout the Mediterranean Sea, stated Ludovic Slimak, one of many lead authors of the brand new examine.
Whereas the researchers discovered no proof of cultural exchanges between the Neanderthals and fashionable people who alternated within the cave, the speedy succession of occupants is in itself important, they stated. In a single case, the cave modified palms within the area of a couple of 12 months, stated Slimak.
Katerina Harvati, a professor of paleoanthropology on the College of Tuebingen, Germany, who was not concerned within the examine, stated the findings upend the concept that many of the European continent was the unique area of Neanderthals till 45,000 years in the past.
Nevertheless homo sapiens' first enterprise into the area wasn't significantly profitable, she famous.
"Mandrin fashionable people appear to have solely survived for a really temporary time period and have been changed once more by Neanderthals for a number of millennia," she stated.
Slimak, an archaeologist on the College of Toulouse, stated the findings at Mandrin recommend the Rhone River could have been a key hyperlink between the Mediterranean coast and continental Europe.
"We're coping with one of the vital pure migration corridors of all the traditional world," he stated.
He and his colleagues anticipate to publish a number of additional important findings primarily based on the mountain of information collected from the cave. Slimak stated a gradual provide of sand carried in by the native Mistral winds has helped protect a wealthy trove of treasures that rivals different well-known archaeological websites.
"Mandrin is sort of a type of Neanderthalian Pompeii," he stated.
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