From BBC website

[Guest guest]

Jawbone hints at earliest Britons

By Paul Rincon

BBC News science reporter

 

 

 

The specimen's teeth are very worn down. (Image: Torquay Museum)

A piece of jawbone that has lain in Torquay Museum, Devon, for nearly

80 years could be the oldest example of a modern human yet found in

Europe.

 

The Kent's Cavern specimen was thought to be about 31,000 years old,

but re-dating shows it is actually between 37,000 and 40,000 years

old.

 

However, the early dates lead the team behind the research to wonder

if the jawbone is actually from a Neanderthal.

 

A new examination of the fragment along with DNA analysis could sort

this out.

 

The re-dating of this specimen puts it at the very dawn of the

arrival of modern humans in Europe

 

Tom Higham, Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit

The fragment of maxilla (upper jaw) containing three teeth was

unearthed in Kent's Cavern, Torquay, in 1927 during an excavation by

the Torquay Natural History Society.

 

Sir Arthur Keith, who was then Britain's leading anatomist,

identified the specimen - known as Kent's Cavern 4 - as that of a

modern human (Homo sapiens). It has by and large been accepted as

such ever since.

 

The real significance of Kent's Cavern 4 was not recognised until the

1980s, when radiocarbon dating revealed its age to be 31,000 years

old.

 

Glue contamination

 

However, the recent discovery that the bone had been strengthened

with paper glue (probably soon after it was excavated) placed that

radiocarbon age in doubt.

 

Now, Roger Jacobi of the British Museum and Tom Higham of the Oxford

Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit have obtained new radiocarbon dates for

animal bones in cave sediments just above and just below where the

jaw fragment was found.

 

 

The early date suggests the specimen might be Neanderthal

These indicate that the layer the maxilla is from dates to between

37,000 and 40,000 years ago.

 

Of the handful of modern humans older than 28,000 years known from

Europe, only Kent's Cavern 4 and the 34-36,000-year-old remains from

Pestera cu Oase in Romania have been directly dated.

 

Direct dating gives an absolute age for the find and the rocks in

which it is buried. The alternative, relative dating, only says

whether a find is older or younger than something else.

 

If the Torquay discovery is from Homo sapiens, says Dr Higham, " it

would be the oldest directly dated modern human in Europe " .

 

" The re-dating of this specimen puts it at the very dawn of the

arrival of modern humans in Europe. So early, in fact, that it makes

us wonder if it is from a modern human or from a Neanderthal, " he

told the BBC News website.

 

DNA analysis

 

Further research on the jawbone fragment is planned with the aim of

answering this question.

 

Chris Stringer, of London's Natural History Museum, and Erik

Trinkaus, of Washington University in St Louis, US, will carry out a

physical examination of the specimen to see if it carries any

features diagnostic of either modern humans or Neanderthals (Homo

neanderthalensis), their close cousins.

 

Tooth samples will also be sent to the Max Planck Institute in

Leipzig, Germany, where researchers will carry out DNA analysis.

 

 

The Cro-Magnons may have spread quickly across Europe

In either case, the specimen will occupy an important place in the

European prehistoric record.

 

If the jawbone is Neanderthal, it will be the first " classic "

Neanderthal confirmed in mainland Britain. Early Neanderthal teeth

dating to about 200,000 years ago have been found at Pontnewydd,

Wales.

 

But if Kent's Cavern 4 is found to come from an early modern human,

or Cro-Magnon, the implications would be even more astounding.

 

" People have been arguing that [modern humans] may have been in

eastern Europe early but they certainly weren't in western Europe, "

Professor Stringer told the BBC News website.

 

" If Kent's Cavern does turn out to be a modern human, it would mean

some of them at least had come across very early.

 

" That would mean that in Britain and in western Europe, there was at

least 10,000 years of overlap between Neanderthals and modern

humans. "

 

The pattern of bones and artefacts found at Kent's Cavern also

provides clues to what was going on there.

 

" The cave is being used on a massive scale by spotted hyenas as a

den. There are huge numbers of gnawed bones and layers of coprolites

[droppings]. So the hyenas are being interrupted by humans coming in

to spend the night and have a meal. I doubt they're really living in

the cave, " said Dr Jacobi.

 

The maxilla is associated with stone tools, but the researchers

cannot yet determine the type of tool technology to which they

belong.

[Guest guest]

The State of California has the 5th largest economy in the world. We have a

ban on smoking and it didn't hurt the economy at all. No bars closed, booze

sales didn't drop, no one lost their jobs.

 

Seems you guys have the same old ol' boys telling the same lies on your side

of the pond!

 

Lynda

-

heartwerk <heartwork

 

> Finally, the report challenged the argument that a ban would cost

> thousands of jobs in the hospitality and brewery industries.

>