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Continuity and Discontinuity in the Peopling of Europe pp 55–66Cite as

The Earliest European Human Peopling After the Recent Discoveries: Early Neanderthals or Different Lineages?

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Part of the book series: Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology ((VERT))

Abstract

This report is a review of the European fossil record during the Pleistocene. We investigate the possibility of an anagenetic evolution of Neandertals starting from the most ancient hominins found at Ceprano, Gran Dolina, etc. It appears that the contribution of the Dmanisi population to later Europeans is very unlikely. We focus on the metric and morphological features of the oldest human fossil in Europe: the cranium from Ceprano. Among the characters observed in Ceprano, a few are also seen in more recent European H. heidelbergensis fossils (especially in Petralona) and many in African H. heidelbergensis fossils (especially in Bodo and Kabwe). We then consider the hypothesis that Ceprano could be ancestral to African H. heidelbergensis but not to European members of this taxon. A cladistic analysis seems to confirm this view. Lastly, in European H. heidelbergensis, we observe a continuity in characters that become more numerous approaching the beginning of the Late Pleistocene. These characters are typical of Homo neanderthalensis following the “Accretion-Model” hypothesis.

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Acknowledgments

We are indebted to Ian Tattersall and Silvana Condemi and two anonymous reviewers for critical and helpful comments on the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biologia, Università degli Studi di Pisa, Via S. Maria 55, 56126, Pisa, Italy

    Francesco Mallegni

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  1. Francesco Mallegni
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Correspondence to Francesco Mallegni .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , EFS, Laboratoire d'Anthropologie biocult, Université de la Méditerranée, Bd Pierre Dramard, Marseille Cedex 15, 13344, France

    Silvana Condemi

  2. Stiftung Neanderthal Museum, Talstraße 300, Mettmann, 40822, Germany

    Gerd-Christian Weniger

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Mallegni, F. (2011). The Earliest European Human Peopling After the Recent Discoveries: Early Neanderthals or Different Lineages?. In: Condemi, S., Weniger, GC. (eds) Continuity and Discontinuity in the Peopling of Europe. Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0492-3_5

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