posted reconstruction, Pestera cu Oase, , located in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains of Romania, dated to about 35,000 years ago
Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor Member # 18264
posted
quote: The 2002 discovery of a robust modern human mandible in the Peştera cu Oase, southwestern Romania, provides evidence of early modern humans in the lower Danubian Corridor. Directly accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (14C)-dated to 34,000–36,000 14C years B.P., the Oase 1 mandible is the oldest definite early modern human specimen in Europe and provides perspectives on the emergence and evolution of early modern humans in the northwestern Old World. The moderately long Oase 1 mandible exhibits a prominent tuber symphyseos and overall proportions that place it close to earlier Upper Paleolithic European specimens. Its symmetrical mandibular incisure, medially placed condyle, small superior medial pterygoid tubercle, mesial mental foramen, and narrow corpus place it closer to early modern humans among Late Pleistocene humans. However, its cross-sectional symphyseal orientation is intermediate between late archaic and early modern humans, the ramus is exceptionally wide, and the molars become progressively larger distally with exceptionally large third molars. The molar crowns lack derived Neandertal features but are otherwise morphologically undiagnostic. However, it has unilateral mandibular foramen lingular bridging, an apparently derived Neandertal feature. It therefore presents a mosaic of archaic, early modern human and possibly Neandertal morphological features, emphasizing both the complex population dynamics of modern human dispersal into Europe and the subsequent morphological evolution of European early modern humans.
--Erik Trinkaus* at al.
An early modern human from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: reconstruction, Pestera cu Oase, , located in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains of Romania, dated to about 35,000 years ago
By this time the Khoisan had been in Europe for over 10k years. I guess they were Europeans.
Troll Patrol # Ish Gebor Member # 18264
posted
quote: Between 2003 and 2005, the Peştera cu Oase, Romania yielded a largely complete early modern human cranium, Oase 2, scattered on the surface of a Late Pleistocene hydraulically displaced bone bed containing principally the remains of Ursus spelaeus. Multiple lines of evidence indicate an age of ≈40.5 thousand calendar years before the present (≈35 ka 14C B.P.). Morphological comparison of the adolescent Oase 2 cranium to relevant Late Pleistocene human samples documents a suite of derived modern human and/or non-Neandertal features, including absence of a supraorbital torus, subrectangular orbits, prominent canine fossae, narrow nasal aperture, level nasal floor, angled and anteriorly oriented zygomatic bones, a high neurocranium with prominent parietal bosses and marked sagittal parietal curvature, superiorly positioned temporal zygomatic root, vertical auditory porous, laterally bulbous mastoid processes, superiorly positioned posterior semicircular canal, absence of a nuchal torus and a suprainiac fossa, and a small occipital bun. However, these features are associated with an exceptionally flat frontal arc, a moderately large juxtamastoid eminence, extremely large molars that become progressively larger distally, complex occlusal morphology of the upper third molar, and relatively anteriorly positioned zygomatic arches. Moreover, the featureless occipital region and small mastoid process are at variance with the large facial skeleton and dentition. This unusual mosaic in Oase 2, some of which is paralleled in the Oase 1 mandible, indicates both complex population dynamics as modern humans dispersed into Europe and significant ongoing human evolution once modern humans were established within Europe.
--He ́le`ne Rougier, Erik Trinkaus*‡ et al.
Peştera cu Oase 2 and the cranial morphology of early modern Europeans
quote: If we bear in mind that objects and ideas can travel much faster than people and their genes, these conclusions carry the further implication that, on a regional basis, the biological affinities of the different groups involved in the emergence of modern human morphology in Europe cannot be simplistically inferred from the nature of the archaeological assemblages. In other words, it remains conceivable that the earliest Aurignacian of Europe (the Protoaurignacian and the Aurignacian I) may have been manufactured by people that, taxonomically speaking, would be classified as modern humans in the east, Neanderthals in the west, and variably mixed in between.
Given the palaeontological evidence, it is in any case clear that the pattern of cultural exchange suggested for Europe by the personal ornaments of the earliest Aurignacian must have been associated with a similar level of genetic exchange. A significant degree of admixture (the assimilation model of modern human emergence) has been repeatedly proposed since the early 1980s (cf. Trinkaus & Zil- hão 2002; Smith et al. 2005; Trinkaus 2007), and the growing body of securely dated and adequately analyzed human remains, from Romania to Portugal, from 40,000 to 30,000 cal. bp, only reinforce what is
--João Zilhão, Erik Trinkaus et al
The Peştera cu Oase People, Europe’s Earliest Modern Humans
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: reconstruction, Pestera cu Oase, , located in the southwestern Carpathian Mountains of Romania, dated to about 35,000 years ago
posted 
