Our origin

1988/06/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Giza zientziak

The relationship between Neanderthal man and anatomically modern man is one of the greatest confusions of human evolution.

As a result of this dating, it has been proven that in the cave of Kevara, in Camel, the Neanderthals lived between 60,000 and 48,000 years ago. These data indicate that the Neanderthals arrived quite late in the Eastern Mediterranean. As Neanderthals do not have their origin in Africa, these Palestinians would probably travel from Europe during the glaciation of 60,000 years ago.

This data should be compared with others. It has long been known that the first humans of modern appearance (or proto Cro-Magnon) lived in the surroundings of the Kevara cave, before this cave was first occupied. The most direct consequence is that Neanderthal does not have our ancestors.

The theory of Neanderthals as a lateral branch of human evolution is not new. But despite criticism, it is growing lately. After this new dating, the simplified version of this theory is that the modern looking man ( Homo sapiens sapiens), 45,000 years ago in Southwest Asia and 35,000 years ago in Europe, replaced the Neanderthal ( Homo sapiens neanderthaliensis). The anatomically modern man came from Africa to Europe and Asia. Although dating is not entirely accurate, modern man lived in Ethiopia at least 100,000 years ago.

Another school says that the Neanderthal is our direct ancestor and not the lost separate human branch. According to this theory, Neanderthals are descendants of a hominid who left Africa a million years ago.

The currency is still in the air and the problem remains to be solved. However, until there are more clues and more details it will not be possible to draw concrete conclusions.