30,000-Year-Old Bone Found French Cave Rewrites Ice Age Ties
Scientists sequenced the genomes of three Gravettian people from Spain, France and Italy. A woman whose bones lay in Isturitz Cave in southwestern France…
A 30,000-year-old bone found French cave site has yielded DNA that challenges a long-held view of Ice Age Europe: that western and eastern populations lived largely apart. Scientists sequenced the genomes of three Late Stone Age people and found closer biological ties than researchers previously thought.
The study was published October 23 in the journal Science Advances. It covered three people from the Gravettian period who lived in what are now Spain, France and Italy.
A woman from Isturitz Cave
The key finding comes from a woman who died around 30,000 years ago. Her bones were found in Isturitz Cave in southwestern France. Her DNA was most similar to previously known Western European genomes, but it carried an unexpected link to Eastern and Central European groups.
"Our results show that eastern and western European populations were not as genetically isolated as previously assumed," said study first author Pere Gelabert, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Vienna, in a statement.
The researchers dated a "pulse" of gene flow to about 31,500 to 32,500 years ago. They wrote that such gene flow from the East is uncommon for the Late Stone Age, also known as the Upper Paleolithic. It "could be explained by movements of people from Eastern Europe during the Gravettian period, which eventually contributed to this ancestry in Isturitz."
Why the Gravettian matters
Shortly after Neanderthals disappeared from Europe, the Gravettian culture spread across the continent. Artifacts, including portable art such as "Venus figurines," show it lasted from about 34,000 to 25,000 years ago.
Yet ancient DNA has been recovered from only two dozen human skeletons from that period. Based on the few genomes sequenced earlier, experts believed groups in Western Europe were largely separate from those in Eastern Europe. The new data cut against that.
A cultural crossroads
Isturitz Cave was first used by Neanderthals and was occupied off and on from about 80,000 to 10,000 years ago. Cups made from human skulls, dated to roughly 15,000 to 12,000 years ago, have also been found there.
The DNA supports an archaeological theory that the cave was an important cultural and biological hub for tens of thousands of years. The researchers wrote that it sat at a critical passage between continental Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. Southwestern France may therefore have been a key meeting point during the last ice age.
All three new genomes showed close biological connections to Western European groups. Genetic traits suggested dark skin, dark hair and dark eyes. Each person also had parents who were not closely related, which suggests those populations may have actively avoided inbreeding.
"Overall, our results suggest that population structure and gene flow in western Europe during the Gravettian were more complex and dynamic than previously assumed," the researchers wrote.
Source: yahoo.com
