Nesher Ramla Homo: The recently discovered Middle Pleistocene fossil

Husna, Amity University Kolkata

Human Evolution has always been an intriguing subject. Recently some fossils have been found in Israel and the analysis of the discovered fossils suggests that interactions between different human species were more complex than previously believed. The research team led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University have their findings published in the journal Science. The study describes recently discovered fossils from the site of Nesher Ramla which is a prehistoric site in Israel. The Nesher Ramla site dates towards the very end of the Middle Pleistocene time period, about 120,000-140,000 years ago.

The human fossils were found during salvage excavations, which is the collection of archaeological material from a site. The excavators found large quantities of animal bones, including those of horses, fallow deer, and aurochs, as well as stone tools and human bones, on digging down about 8 metres. The human fossils consisted of a partial cranial vault and a mandible. In order to compare them with other fossils from Europe, Africa, and Asia, the researchers made virtual reconstructions of the fossils so that they could analyse them using sophisticated computer software programs. By the results, it was unraveled that the Nesher Ramla fossils represent late survivors of a population of humans who lived in the Middle East during the Middle Pleistocene period.

The taxonomic classification of Nesher Ramla fossils suggests that it seems more Neanderthal-like in the mandible and less Neanderthal-like in the cranial vault, but is clearly distinct from modern humans. This pattern matches with both Neanderthals and modern humans where the diagnostic skeletal features of each species appear first in their facial region and later on the cranial vault.

The significance of these findings is that they provide archaeological support for cultural interactions between different human lineages, add another piece to the puzzle of human evolution, and understand the migrations of humans in the old world as well. The radiometric ages, stone tool assemblages, faunal assemblages, and other behavioral and environmental data associated with the fossil suggest that they had fully mastered technology and were linked to either homo sapiens or Neanderthals. The Nesher Ramla people lived in the late middle Pleistocene period and reveal a great deal about their descendants’ evolution and their way of life. They were hunters of large and small game, cooked or roasted meat, used wood for fuel, and maintained fires. 

The findings from Nesher Ramla are important additions to the growing fossil record from the Middle East region because they belong to a time period of the Middle East fossils. The researchers were very careful and they didn’t attribute the Nesher Ramla fossils to a new species. Rather, they grouped them together with earlier fossils which were discovered from several sites in the Middle East and have been difficult to classify. They considered all of them to represent a local population of humans that occupied the region between about 420,000-120,000. Since the Middle East sits at the crossroads of three continents, it is likely that different human groups moved into and out of the region regularly thus exchanging genes with the local inhabitants. This scenario even explains the varying anatomical features in these fossils. Thus, the Nesher Ramla fossils represent the latest known survivors of this localized Middle Pleistocene population.

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Source:

1. Nesher Ramla Homo: New fossil discovery from Israel points to complicated evolutionary process (2021, June 24) retrieved 26 June 2021 from https://phys.org/news/2021-06-nesher-ramla-homofossil-discovery.html

2. ISRAEL HERSHKOVITZ, H. M.-H.-T.-F. (2021, 06 25). A Middle Pleistocene Homo from Nesher Ramla, Israel. Science, 372(6549), 1424-1428. doi:http://10.1126/science.abh3169

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