Direct radiocarbon dates for Vindija G ₁ and Velika Pećina Late Pleistocene hominid remains

TLDR

Hominid specimens from both sites have played critical roles in shaping current perspectives on modern human evolutionary emergence in Europe. The authors present new accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates from Late Pleistocene hominid remains at Vindija and Velika Pećina. The dates were obtained by directly measuring the remains with accelerator mass spectrometry. Radiocarbon dates of ≈28–29 ka for two Vindija G 1 specimens confirm them as the most recent Neandertals in Eurasia, while a ≈5 ka date for a Velika Pećina frontal bone disqualifies it as an early modern human, thereby invalidating the sole radiometric evidence of Neandertal–modern human overlap in Europe and prompting new questions about the timing and nature of early modern human dispersal and interactions with Neandertals.

Abstract

New accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon dates taken directly on human remains from the Late Pleistocene sites of Vindija and Velika Pećina in the Hrvatsko Zagorje of Croatia are presented. Hominid specimens from both sites have played critical roles in the development of current perspectives on modern human evolutionary emergence in Europe. Dates of ≈28 thousand years (ka) before the present (B.P.) and ≈29 ka B.P. for two specimens from Vindija G 1 establish them as the most recent dated Neandertals in the Eurasian range of these archaic humans. The human frontal bone from Velika Pećina, generally considered one of the earliest representatives of modern humans in Europe, dated to ≈5 ka B.P., rendering it no longer pertinent to discussions of modern human origins. Apart from invalidating the only radiometrically based example of temporal overlap between late Neandertal and early modern human fossil remains from within any region of Europe, these dates raise the question of when early modern humans first dispersed into Europe and have implications for the nature and geographic patterning of biological and cultural interactions between these populations and the Neandertals.