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Ancient teeth from Italy suggest that the reaching of modern humans in Western Europe coincided with the demise of Neanderthals there , researcher said .
This finding suggests that modern humanity may have caused Neanderthals to go extinct , either flat or indirectly , scientists added .
Upper Palaeolithic modern human infant skull from Sungir (left) and the Neandertal infant skull of Roc de Marsal (right).
Neanderthalsare the closest nonextant relative of modern mankind . late findings paint a picture that Neanderthals , who once lived in Europe and Asia , were nearly enough related to humans tointerbreed with the ancestors of modern humans — about1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNAof anyone outside Africa is Neanderthal in inception . Recent findings suggest thatNeanderthals vanish from Europebetween about 41,000 and 39,000 years ago .
scientist have heatedly debated whether Neanderthals were force back into experimental extinction because of modernistic human . To work out this closed book , research worker have tried pinpointing when mod humans entered Western Europe . [ Image Gallery : Our secretive Human Ancestor ]
Modern homo or Neanderthal ?
A fossil tooth found at an Italian site called Grotta di Fumane (shown here) came from a modern human, scientists say.
The Protoaurignacians , who first appeared in southerly Europe about 42,000 years ago , could throw away light on the entrance of modern humans into the area . This civilisation was known for its miniature blades and for uncomplicated ornaments made of shells and os .
Scientists had long viewed the Protoaurignacians as the predecessor of the Aurignacians — modern man mention after the site of Aurignac in southern France who spread across Europe between about 35,000 and 45,000 years ago . Researchers had recall the Protoaurignacians reflected the westward bedspread of mod human being from the Near East — the part of Asia between the Mediterranean Sea and India that includes the Middle East .
However , the classification of the Protoaurignacians as modern human or Neanderthal has long been uncertain . Fossils recover from Protoaurignacian sites were not once and for all identified as either .
These 3D models show an incisor tooth from two Italian sites, Riparo Bombrini (left) and Grotta di Fumane (right).
Now scientist break down two 41,000 - class - old tooth from two Protoaurignacian sites in Italy find that the fossils belong to modern humanity .
" We finally have substantiation for the argument that says that forward-looking humans were there when theNeanderthals get going extinctin Europe , " field lead author Stefano Benazzi , a paleoanthropologist at the University of Bologna in Ravenna , Italy , told Live Science .
The research worker investigated a lower incisor tooth from Riparo Bombrini , an digging site in Italy , and found it had relatively thick enamel . Prior research suggested New human teeth had stocky tooth enamel than those of Neanderthals , perhaps because New humans were healthy or modernise more slowly . They also liken desoxyribonucleic acid from an upper incisor tooth institute in another site in Italy — Grotta di Fumane — with that of 52 present - day innovative humans , 10 ancient mod humans , a chimpanzee , 10 Neanderthals , two phallus of a recently discovered human descent known as theDenisovans , and one member of an unknown form of human lineage from Spain , and see that the Protoaurignacian DNA was modernistic human .
" This research really could not have been done without the collaborationism of investigator in many dissimilar scientific enquiry fields — paleoanthropologists , molecular anthropologists , physical anthropologists , paleontologists and physicists working on dating the fossils , " Benazzi say .
Killing off Neanderthal
Since the Protoaurignacians first appear in Europe about 42,000 years ago and the Neanderthals disappeared from Europe between about 41,000 and 39,000 years ago , these novel findings hint that Protoaurignacians " caused , forthwith or indirectly , the dying of Neanderthals , " Benazzi say .
It remains unclear just how modern humans might have driven Neanderthals into extinction , Benazzi cautioned . Modern human race might have competed with Neanderthals , or they might simply have assimilated Neanderthals into their population .
Moreover , prior research suggests thatNeanderthals in Europe might have been headed toward extinctionbefore modern humanity even arrived on the continent . Neanderthals apparently receive a decline in transmissible diversity about the time when modern humans began turn up in Europe .
" The only means we might have proof of how mod humans caused the decline of Neanderthals is if we ever find out a forward-looking human inhume a tongue into the promontory of a Neanderthal , " Benazzi joked .
The researchers now hope to find more Protoaurignacian human remains . " Hopefully , we can discover DNA that may say something about whether these advanced humans and Neanderthals hybridize , " Benazzi say .
The scientists detailed their findings in the April 24 issue of the journal Science .
