Buran-Kaya III in Crimea

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Article

Published: 23 October 2023

Genome sequences of 36,000- to 37,000-year-old modern humans at Buran-Kaya III in Crimea
E. Andrew Bennett, Oğuzhan Parasayan, Sandrine Prat, Stéphane Péan, Laurent Crépin, Alexandr Yanevich, Thierry Grange & Eva-Maria Geigl


Abstract

Populations genetically related to present-day Europeans first appeared in Europe at some point after 38,000–40,000 years ago, following a cold period of severe climatic disruption. These new migrants would eventually replace the pre-existing modern human ancestries in Europe, but initial interactions between these groups are unclear due to the lack of genomic evidence from the earliest periods of the migration. Here we describe the genomes of two 36,000–37,000-year-old individuals from Buran-Kaya III in Crimea as belonging to this newer migration. Both genomes share the highest similarity to Gravettian-associated individuals found several thousand years later in southwestern Europe. These genomes also revealed that the population turnover in Europe after 40,000 years ago was accompanied by admixture with pre-existing modern human populations. European ancestry before 40,000 years ago persisted not only at Buran-Kaya III but is also found in later Gravettian-associated populations of western Europe and Mesolithic Caucasus populations.

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October 2018

The First Anatomically Modern Humans from South-Eastern Europe. Contributions from the Buran-Kaya III Site (Crimea)

S. Prat1*, S. Péan2, L. Crépin2, S. Puaud1, D.G. Drucker3,4, M. Lázničková-Galetová1,5,6, J. Van der Plicht7, H. Valladas8, C. Verna1, M. Patou-Mathis2, M. Lebon1 and A. Yanevich9

The arrival of modern humans into Europe, their dispersal and their potential interactions with Neanderthals are still in debate. Whereas the first appearance of anatomically modern humans in Western Europe seems to be well understood, the situation is quite different for Eastern Europe, where data are more scarce. The Buran-Kaya III site in Crimea is of key importance to understand the colonization of Europe by anatomically modern humans and their potential contemporaneity with the last Neanderthal occupations. The new radiocarbon dated sequence shows that no Neanderthal settlement existed after 39 ka cal BP and casts doubt on the survival, as previously proposed, of Neanderthal refuge zones in Crimea 28 ka BP ago (34-32 ka cal BP). The human remains from Buran-Kaya III, directly dated to 32450 +250/-230 BP (layer 6-2) and 31900+/-220 BP (layer 6-1) (37.1-35.7 ka cal BP and 36.3-35.2 cal BP respectively), represent some of the oldest evidence of anatomically modern humans in Europe in a unique welldocumented archaeological context (Gravettian). Furthermore, the specimens from layer 6-1 represent the oldest Upper Palaeolithic modern humans from Eastern Europe with evidence of post-mortem treatment of the dead.