Southwest Asian Neanderthals were Neanderthals who lived in Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Palestine, Iraq, and Iran - the southernmost expanse of the known Neanderthal range. Although their arrival in Asia is not well-dated, early Neanderthals occupied the region apparently until about 100,000 years ago. At this time, Homo sapiens immigrants seem to have replaced them in one of the first anatomically-modern expansions out of Africa. In their turn, starting around 80,000 years ago, Neanderthals seem to have returned and replaced Homo sapiens in Southwest Asia. They inhabited the region until about 55,000 years ago.[1]
In Southwest Asia Neanderthals have left well-preserved skeletal remains in present-day Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. Remains in Turkey, Lebanon, and Iran are fragmentary. No Neanderthal skeletal remains have ever been found to the south of Jerusalem, and although there are Middle Palaeolithic Levallois points in Jordan and in the Arabian peninsula, it is unclear whether these were made by Neanderthals or by anatomically modern humans.[1] Neanderthals living further to the east, such as those found in present-day Uzbekistan[2][3] and Asian Russia[4][5] are known as Central and North Asian Neanderthals.
As of 2013[update], although many more Neanderthal remains have been discovered in Southwest Asia than in North Asia, where genetic studies have succeeded,[6] no attempt at extracting DNA from Southwest Asian Neanderthals has ever been successful.[7]
- ^ a b E. Been; E. Hovers; R. Ekshtain; A. Malinski-Buller; N. Agha; A. Barash; D.E. Bar-Yosef Mayer; S. Benazzi; J.-J. Hublin; L. Levin; et al. (2017). "The first Neanderthal remains from an open-air Middle Palaeolithic site in the Levant". Scientific Reports. 7 (2958): 2958. Bibcode:2017NatSR...7.2958B. doi:10.1038/s41598-017-03025-z. PMC 5462778. PMID 28592838.
- ^ A. Okladnikov (1949). "Исследование мустьерской стоянки и погребеня неандертальца в гроте Тешик-Таш, Южный Узбекистан (Средняя Азия)" [Investigation of the Mousterian site and burial of a Neanderthal in the cave of Teshik-Tash, Southern Uzbekistan (Central Asia)]. Тешик-Таш. Палеолитический человек (in Russian). Moscow. pp. 7–85.
{{cite encyclopedia}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Michelle Glantz; Bence Viola; Patrick Wrinn; Tatiana Chikisheva; Anatoly Derevianko; Andrei Krivoshapkin; Uktur Islamov; Rustam Suleimanov; Terrence Ritzman (2008). "New hominin remains from Uzbekistan". Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (2): 223–237. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2007.12.007. PMID 18499228.
- ^ M.B. Mednikova (2011). "A proximal pedal phalanx of a Paleolithic hominin from Denisova Cave, Altai". Archaeology, Ethnology and Anthropology of Eurasia. 39 (1): 129–138. doi:10.1016/j.aeae.2011.06.017.
- ^ B. Viola; S.V. Markin; A.P. Buzhilova; M.B. Mednikova; A. Le Cabec; M.V. Shunkov; et al. (2012). "New Neanderthal remains from Chagyrskaya Cave (Altai Mountains, Russian Federation)". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 147 (Suppl. 54): 293–294. doi:10.1002/ajpa.22033.
- ^ K. Prüfer; F. Racimo; N. Patterson; F. Jay; S. Sankararaman; S. Sawyer; A. Heinze; G. Renaud; P.H. Sudmant; C. de Filippo; et al. (2014). "The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains". Nature. 505 (7481): 43–49. Bibcode:2014Natur.505...43P. doi:10.1038/nature12886. PMC 4031459. PMID 24352235.(subscription required)
- ^ J. Hawks (2013). "Significance of Neandertal and Denisovan Genomes in Human Evolution". Annual Review of Anthropology. 42: 433–449. doi:10.1146/annurev-anthro-092412-155548.
