PMID- 21555570
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20111007
LR  - 20211020
IS  - 1091-6490 (Electronic)
IS  - 0027-8424 (Print)
IS  - 0027-8424 (Linking)
VI  - 108
IP  - 21
DP  - 2011 May 24
TI  - Revised age of late Neanderthal occupation and the end of the Middle Paleolithic 
      in the northern Caucasus.
PG  - 8611-6
LID - 10.1073/pnas.1018938108 [doi]
AB  - Advances in direct radiocarbon dating of Neanderthal and anatomically modern 
      human (AMH) fossils and the development of archaeostratigraphic chronologies now 
      allow refined regional models for Neanderthal-AMH coexistence. In addition, they 
      allow us to explore the issue of late Neanderthal survival in regions of Western 
      Eurasia located within early routes of AMH expansion such as the Caucasus. Here 
      we report the direct radiocarbon ((14)C) dating of a late Neanderthal specimen 
      from a Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) layer in Mezmaiskaya Cave, northern 
      Caucasus. Additionally, we provide a more accurate chronology for the timing of 
      Neanderthal extinction in the region through a robust series of 16 ultrafiltered 
      bone collagen radiocarbon dates from LMP layers and using Bayesian modeling to 
      produce a boundary probability distribution function corresponding to the end of 
      the LMP at Mezmaiskaya. The direct date of the fossil (39,700 +/- 1,100 (14)C BP) 
      is in good agreement with the probability distribution function, indicating at a 
      high level of probability that Neanderthals did not survive at Mezmaiskaya Cave 
      after 39 ka cal BP ("calendrical" age in kiloannum before present, based on 
      IntCal09 calibration curve). This challenges previous claims for late Neanderthal 
      survival in the northern Caucasus. We see striking and largely synchronous 
      chronometric similarities between the Bayesian age modeling for the end of the 
      LMP at Mezmaiskaya and chronometric data from Ortvale Klde for the end of the LMP 
      in the southern Caucasus. Our results confirm the lack of reliably dated 
      Neanderthal fossils younger than  approximately  40 ka cal BP in any other region of Western 
      Eurasia, including the Caucasus.
FAU - Pinhasi, Ron
AU  - Pinhasi R
AD  - Department of Archaeology, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. 
      r.pinhasi@ucc.ie
FAU - Higham, Thomas F G
AU  - Higham TF
FAU - Golovanova, Liubov V
AU  - Golovanova LV
FAU - Doronichev, Vladimir B
AU  - Doronichev VB
LA  - eng
PT  - Historical Article
PT  - Journal Article
PT  - Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
DEP - 20110509
PL  - United States
TA  - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
JT  - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JID - 7505876
SB  - IM
MH  - Animals
MH  - Asia, Western
MH  - Bayes Theorem
MH  - Europe, Eastern
MH  - *Fossils
MH  - History, Ancient
MH  - *Hominidae
MH  - Humans
MH  - Paleontology/*methods
MH  - Radiometric Dating
PMC - PMC3102382
COIS- The authors declare no conflict of interest.
EDAT- 2011/05/11 06:00
MHDA- 2011/10/08 06:00
PMCR- 2011/11/24
CRDT- 2011/05/11 06:00
PHST- 2011/05/11 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2011/05/11 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2011/10/08 06:00 [medline]
PHST- 2011/11/24 00:00 [pmc-release]
AID - 1018938108 [pii]
AID - 201018938 [pii]
AID - 10.1073/pnas.1018938108 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2011 May 24;108(21):8611-6. doi: 
      10.1073/pnas.1018938108. Epub 2011 May 9.