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Thermoluminescence dating of Mousterian Troto-Cro-Magnon' remains from Israel and the origin of modern man

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Abstract

The Qafzeh1 and Skhul2,3 caves in Israel have yielded the remains of over 30 hominids. Despite their association with Mousterian deposits, these have been recognized as forerunners of other Homo sapiens sapiens on morphological grounds and have been called 'Proto-Cro-Magnons'1. Other west Asian caves (Amud, Tabun, Kebara and Shanidar) have yielded skeletal remains of Neanderthals associated with similar Middle Palaeolithic deposits. The lack of precise dates for these deposits has made it difficult to ascertain which of the two hominids was present first in the area1'4–9. Recently we reported an age of ≈60 kyr for the Neanderthal burial at Kebara6 (Israel). Here we report thermolumines-cence dates for 20 specimens of burnt flints recovered from the hominid-bearing layers of Qafzeh1. The dates, which range from ∼90 to 100 kyr bp, provide an independent measure for the great antiquity of southwest Asian modern humans which have previously been dated to ∼40 kyr bp on the basis of European models7–9 . Our results also exclude a close phylogenetic relationship between the Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals1,4–6.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre des Faibles Radioactivités, Laboratoire mixte CNRS-CEA, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198, Gif sur Yvette Cedex, France

    H. Valladas, J. L. Reyss & G. Valladas

  2. Group des Sciences de la Terre, Laboratoire Pierre Sue, CEN, Saclay, 91191, Gif sur Yvette, France

    J. L. Joron

  3. Isotope Department, Weizmann Institute of Sciences, Rehovot, 76100, Israel

    O. Bar-Yosef

  4. Laboratoire d'Anthropologie, Université de Bordeaux 1, UA 376 du CNRS, 33405, Talence, France

    B. Vandermeersch

Authors
  1. H. Valladas
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  2. J. L. Reyss
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  3. J. L. Joron
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  4. G. Valladas
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  5. O. Bar-Yosef
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  6. B. Vandermeersch
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Valladas, H., Reyss, J., Joron, J. et al. Thermoluminescence dating of Mousterian Troto-Cro-Magnon' remains from Israel and the origin of modern man. Nature 331, 614–616 (1988). https://doi.org/10.1038/331614a0

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