Researchers debunk Stone Age man

[Troll's Puzzle]

Interesting findings about one of the more famous and important 'ancient' european skulls, Combe-Capelle.
using tooth material some scientists have redated it to a much more recent time.

original article auf Deutsch

bad (possibly misleadingly so) translation of bits of it into Inselaffenish by me:

Famous skull bones from the Stone Age are thousands of years younger than previously thought. Their owner was therefore not one of the earliest arrivals from Africa into Europe - and the rebuilt new museum in Berlin has their exhibition.
...
So far, the so-called grave of Combe Capelle was considered one of the oldest evidence of modern humans in Europe.

The skul should be about 30,000 years old, according to Otto Hauser, as evidenced to the Swiss researchers by the Paleolithic layers of the soil at the site. This means that the hunter-gatherers from the Perigord still roamed with Neandertals through the area - and would be a representative of the Cro-Magnon man, the early arrivals of the modern human species in cold Europe.

A new dating has now demystified the Stone Age bone.

"We must now remove the find from the canon of the earliest anatomically modern humans in Europe," says researcher Terberger. For Combe Capelle lived probably only about 9500 years ago. The scientists have found out at the Leibnitz-Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Isotope Research in collaboration with colleagues at other institutions.

The "Journal of Human Evolution," will publish the results of the radiocarbon dating results in one of its coming issues. Thus loses the French rock-grave his prominent role in the Upper paleolithic. It did not contain those quasi-newcomers from africa that many had long thought. And other tombs from this period are not known.

[Logan]

One or the other is off.

Early dispersal of modern humans in Europe and implications for Neanderthal behaviour

Received30 August 2011Accepted05 October 2011Published online02 November 2011

'The appearance of anatomically modern humans in Europe and the nature of the transition from the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic are matters of intense debate. Most researchers accept that before the arrival of anatomically modern humans, Neanderthals had adopted several ‘transitional’ technocomplexes. Two of these, the Uluzzian of southern Europe and the Châtelperronian of western Europe, are key to current interpretations regarding the timing of arrival of anatomically modern humans in the region and their potential interaction with Neanderthal populations. They are also central to current debates regarding the cognitive abilities of Neanderthals and the reasons behind their extinction1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. However, the actual fossil evidence associated with these assemblages is scant and fragmentary7, 8, 9, 10, and recent work has questioned the attribution of the Châtelperronian to Neanderthals on the basis of taphonomic mixing and lithic analysis11, 12. Here we reanalyse the deciduous molars from the Grotta del Cavallo (southern Italy), associated with the Uluzzian and originally classified as Neanderthal13, 14. Using two independent morphometric methods based on microtomographic data, we show that the Cavallo specimens can be attributed to anatomically modern humans. The secure context of the teeth provides crucial evidence that the makers of the Uluzzian technocomplex were therefore not Neanderthals. In addition, new chronometric data for the Uluzzian layers of Grotta del Cavallo obtained from associated shell beads and included within a Bayesian age model show that the teeth must date to ~45,000–43,000 calendar years before present. The Cavallo human remains are therefore the oldest known European anatomically modern humans, confirming a rapid dispersal of modern humans across the continent before the Aurignacian and the disappearance of Neanderthals.'

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal...ture10617.html