Beautiful and terrible


This is one of the loveliest fossils I’ve ever seen. They are the bones of a Neanderthal, found in a cave in southern Italy, and although they’ve been calcified by mineral-rich water trickling through the cave where they were found, it’s an almost complete skeleton, with the bones all intact.

altamura

That’s the grisly part of the story. This person apparently fell into a hole in the karst landscape and was trapped — he’s presumed to have starved to death there. There were no predators able to reach him, either, so his body decayed in place, his bones slumped into a pile, and the slowly accumulating limestone locked everything into a fused lump…until cave explorers shone a light into his tomb and saw his skull looking back at them in 1993.

Now we know how long his bones had laid there undiscovered: about 150,000 years. It’s a little late to inform his family of his fate, especially since his subspecies has been extinct for about 40,000 years.

At least we’re learning some things from his sad demise. The bones are literally fused into the cave wall, making extraction nearly impossible, and there are some hot arguments against even trying. But recently a small part of one shoulder blade was cut loose and analyzed.

The sample was dated, which is how we know how long ago this individual suffered his unfortunate end. Further, some attempts to extract DNA from the sample have been successful — it’s blown to bits, but enough intact fragments of mitochondrial DNA were found to compare with other specimens: he’s definitely Neanderthal, with some regional anatomical peculiarities, and his DNA is distinct from that of modern human and Denisovan populations. But he’s old, very old — keep in mind that the earlier sequenced Neanderthal DNA was about 50,000 years old. This fellow is separated by a distance in time from other Neanderthal DNA specimens that is twice as great as that separating us from the established Neanderthal genome.

Of course, that makes sequencing this genome even more interesting. Also technically far more difficult, maybe impossible.

But here’s what we know right now:

Overall, the results of our morphometric and the paleogenetic analyses concur in indicating that the skeleton from Altamura belongs to a Neanderthal. In addition, using U/Th dating we were able to provide the first range of dates for the specimen, between 130±2 ka and 172±15 ka.

Nevertheless, some features exhibited by the skeleton and observed in situ (on the cranium, in particular, as summarized in the Introduction) differ from the morphology known among the typical representatives of Homo neanderthalensis, while they appear consistent with the pre-Würmian age we obtained. Metrical variables show that the scapula-humeral joint is closer to the morphotype usually referred to the so-called “early Neanderthals,” including specimens such as those from Saccopastore, or Apidima. In addition, geometric morphometric analysis of the SGF from Altamura suggests some peculiarities of this small piece of bone, while (consistent with the mtDNA data) the same analysis strengthens the notion that the Neanderthal morphology was essentially present in the late Middle Pleistocene.

Finally, it is of great interest that mtDNA was sufficiently preserved to permit paleogenetic analysis. The results of the explorative approach used here have shown that the sample contained endogenous DNA (although highly fragmented) with a typical Neanderthal haplotype; moreover, there was no evidence of modern human contamination in the bone fragment, at least not at the mtDNA level. For these reasons, the Altamura skeleton should be considered a good candidate for more innovative genomic analyses, like capture approaches or ultra-deep shotgun sequencing, especially when we consider that Altamura represents the most ancient Neanderthal from which endogenous DNA has been retrieved so far.


Lari M, Di Vincenzo F, Borsato A, Ghirotto S, Micheli M, Balsamo C, Collina C, De Bellis G, Frisia S, Giacobini G, Gigli E, Hellstrom JC, Lannino A, Modi A, Pietrelli A, Pilli E, Profico A, Ramirez O, Rizzi E, Vai S, Venturo D, Piperno M, Lalueza-Fox C, Barbujani G, Caramelli D, Manzi G (2015) The Neanderthal in the karst: First dating, morphometric, and paleogenetic data on the fossil skeleton from Altamura (Italy). J Hum Evol pii: S0047-2484(15)00026-3. doi: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2015.02.007

Comments

  1. sundoga says

    This could teach us a lot about the early Neanderthals and their development. His bad luck. our good fortune.

  2. sawells says

    That is looking very like the Pirates of the Caribbean Davy Jones scenes, isn’t it?

  3. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    I’m a little curious as to what methodology produces a range where the error bars don’t overlap.

  4. Donnie says

    At least we’re learning some things from his sad demise. The bones are literally fused into the cave wall, making extraction nearly impossible, and there are some hot arguments against even trying. But recently a small part of one shoulder blade was cut loose and analyzed.

    Why not? I haven’t read the link to the original, but I am trying to speculate why one would not attempt to remove the full skeleton?

    – Respect for the dead? Then why attempt to extract Lucy and such
    – Ruining the Skeleton? Anything retrieved will be more than what can be done just by surface examination

  5. numerobis says

    I’m a little curious as to what methodology produces a range where the error bars don’t overlap.

    I’m assuming one test gives an upper bound, another gives a lower bound, each test has its own error bars?

  6. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    @numerobis #10
    Yes, I understand that, but there is no actual number that fits both tests. So either one or both tests are wrong, or one or both tests has severely underestimated their uncertainty values.

  7. Johnny Vector says

    Ariaflame @11:

    No, you’re still not understanding that. One test gives an upper bound, the other gives a lower bound. It’s good that the errors of one don’t overlap the errors of the other. That way there is a whole range of numbers that fit both limits.

    Also, you could, y’know, read the paper. They dated the calcite overgrowths, which happened in ranges. They can determine that the individual died between two of the mineral growth periods, and those two periods were dated as listed. Therefore they know the individual died between those two periods.

    Therefore, on the basis of these considerations, the Altamura skeleton is very likely older than 130.1 ± 1.9 ka and possibly younger than 172 ± 15 ka. These dates should be confirmed with a second batch of analyses on similar calcite samples coating the skeleton, whereas the actual lower age limit can be identified by the dating of fossil speleothems underneath the hominin bones. Both of these topics will be addressed in the near future as soon as the sampling authorization is granted.

  8. gmacs says

    his subspecies has been extinct for about 40,000 years.

    I thought they had determined that most modern Homo sapiens sapiens most likely had some extent of neanderthalensis ancestry. Which would technically mean that the two subspecies had essentially fused back into one species.

    One thing I’ve wondered about: If interbreeding was possible between sapiens sapiens and sapiens neanderthalensis, but archaeological evidence shows places with strata demonstrating distinctively separate subspecies occupation, going back and forth, does this suggest that Homo sapiens has an inherent tendency toward serious tribalism and racism?

  9. gmacs says

    Not that I’m trying to be apologetic for the racism that we clearly demonstrate within our species. Or that I’m actually trying to make a serious scientific claim or hypothesis. I’m not an anthropologist, and the extent of my evolutionary bio is TA-ing an undergrad lab on the subject.

  10. Ariaflame, BSc, BF, PhD says

    You’re right. I probably should have read the paper. I apologise, I can only plead that it’s the middle of the night here and my cold has made my head a bit too fuzzy.

    That they were tests of two things that may have come from different temporal periods makes sense.

  11. says

    That’s pretty common, to report an upper and lower bound. If you can’t date the actual specimen, but instead date a stratum below it and one above it (or in this case, multiple rounds of calcite deposition), you end up with two numbers that bracket the age of the specimen itself.

  12. chigau (違う) says

    Donnie #9
    Unless it’s salvage work, archaeologists rarely remove everything from a site.
    It’s partly a assumption that Future Archaeologists will have Superior Technology.

  13. stwriley says

    I know these remains are in a cave, not underwater, but when I first saw the pictures of them, “Ariel’s Song” from The Tempest immediately came to mind:

    Full fathom five thy father lies;
    Of his bones are coral made;
    Those are pearls that were his eyes:
    Nothing of him that doth fade,
    But doth suffer a sea-change
    Into something rich and strange.

  14. Menyambal says

    That is a beautiful image. I vote for leaving it right there, unless somebody is planning to ceremoniously take it up to daylight, then rebury it according to best guess at Neanderthal practices.

    My best understanding of the ancestry/relatedness issue is that the Neanderthal left Africa and adapted to Europe. Then, some time later, some modern Africans went up into Europe and mixed with the locals a bit, before mostly replacing them. The new Europeans kept the Neanderthal characteristics best suited for Europe, namely pale skin and more hair. You know, external features.

    My point is that most of what Europeans consider as making them different from Africans is all Neanderthal. And all superficial.

    Africans, as a general group, don’t have the Neanderthal. But speaking of Africans as a general group is wrong. There is more genetic diversity within Africa than outside of it. Even sub-Saharan Africa alone, the part least likely to have Neanderthal genes, has more diversity.

    Sorry, I have read one too many references to modern humans having Neanderthal genes, when most of us don’t. Yeah, there are some in the pool, but it is over in the European side.

    (There is a pun about European in the pool, somewhere there.)

  15. Donnie says

    chigau (違う)
    17 April 2015 at 10:43 am

    Unless it’s salvage work, archaeologists rarely remove everything from a site.
    It’s partly a assumption that Future Archaeologists will have Superior Technology.

    Okay. I can understand that. Like when the archaeologists raided the middle east for artifacts. Not an exact parallel, but leave shit alone for future generations to study with improved technology. Or, more succinctly, don’t fuck with shit in case you destroy it. Of course, I did read your Superior Technology with scare quotes making it sound like a pronouncement from a transhumanist.

  16. The Mellow Monkey says

    Menyambal @ 20

    The new Europeans kept the Neanderthal characteristics best suited for Europe, namely pale skin and more hair.

    The European mutations for pale skin are a bit more recent than that. Whatever coloring the Neanderthals had, European light-skin alleles pop up later:

    Research indicates the selection for the light-skin alleles of these genes in Europeans is comparatively recent, having occurred later than 20,000 years ago and perhaps as recently as 12,000 to 6,000 years ago.[17] In the 1970s, Luca Cavalli-Sforza suggested that the selective sweep that rendered light skin ubiquitous in Europe might be correlated with the advent of farming and thus have taken place only around 6,000 years ago;[36] This scenario found support in a 2014 analysis of mesolithic (7,000 years old) hunter-gatherer DNA from La Braña, Spain, which showed the version of these genes corresponding to dark skin color.[37] In 2015 researchers analysed for light skin genes in the DNA of 94 ancient skeletons ranging from 8,000 to 3,000 years old from Europe and Russia. They found about 8,000 year old hunter-gatherers in Spain, Luxembourg, and Hungary were dark skinned while similarly aged hunter gatherers in Sweden were light skinned (having predominately derived alleles of SLC24A5, SLC45A2 and also HERC2/OCA2). Neolithic farmers entering Europe at around the same time were intermediate, being nearly fixed for the derived SLC24A5 variant but only having the derived SLC45A2 allele in low frequencies. The SLC24A5 variant spread very rapidly throughout central and southern Europe from about 8,000 years ago, whereas the light skin variant of SLC45A2 spread throughout Europe after 5,800 years ago.

  17. Sharon C says

    @13 It’s my understanding that neanderthalensis and sapiens didn’t fuse, there was just some horizontal gene transfer between them.

    “Species” are a fuzzy concept to begin with, but lots of them experience some levels of hybridization with close relatives while still being distinct species. If there’s a small minority of haplotypes in a genome, we generally think it’s horizontal transfer (or deep coalescence), and not the collapse of 2 species into 1.

  18. nomuse says

    Thank you, stwriley. That was my first thought too. But I could only remember fragments of Prospero’s little cheer-up speech.