Search

Wepresent the high-quality genome sequence of a 45,000-year-old modern human male from Siberia. This individual derives from a population that lived before¿or simultaneously with¿the separation of the populations in western and eastern Eurasia and carries a similar amount of Neanderthal ancestry as present-day Eurasians. However, the genomic segments of Neanderthal ancestry are substantially longer than those observed in present-day individuals, indicating that Neanderthal gene flow into the ancestors of this individual occurred 7,000¿13,000 years before he lived. We estimate an autosomal mutation rate of 0.4 x 10-9 to 0.6x10-9 per site per year, a Y chromosomal mutation rate of 0.7x10-9 to 0.9x10-9 per site per year based on the additional substitutions that have occurred in present-day non- Africans compared to this genome, and a mitochondrial mutation rate of 1.8x10-8 to 3.2x10-8 per site per year based on the age of the bone.

The study of stone artifacts can provide crucial insights into various aspects of past human adaptation. Knowledge of the geographic provenance of the raw materials, in particular, can inform us of the mobility and resource exploitation strategies employed by past human groups. However, it is difficult to reliably infer dynamic human behaviours from the frequencies with which different raw material are represented at archaeological sites, particularly when the latter reflect the activities of individuals belonging to an extinct human species whose cognitive and physical abilities may have been markedly different from our own.This dissertation provides a new approach for understanding aspects of human adaptation in the Middle Palaeolithic on the basis of toolstone provenance. The approach centers on computer simulations and it is designed to maximize the potential of toolstone provenance information while minimizing reliance on possibly unfounded assumptions about human behaviour derived from studies of present-day societies. The approach is applied to the French Middle Palaeolithic site of the Bau de l’Aubesier, revealing, amongst other things, that the Neanderthal occupants of the site possessed excellent spatial memory and navigational abilities, regularly exploited a surprisingly large area, and appear to have treated stone resources in a strictly utilitarian manner.

The diminutive middle ear ossicles (malleus, incus, stapes) housed in the tympanic cavity of the temporal bone play an important role in audition. The few known ossicles of Neandertals are distinctly different from those of anatomically modern humans (AMHs), despite the close relationship between both human species. Although not mutually exclusive, these differences may affect hearing capacity or could reflect covariation with the surrounding temporal bone. Until now, detailed comparisons were hampered by the small sample of Neandertal ossicles and the unavailability of methods combining analyses of ossicles with surrounding structures. Here, we present an analysis of the largest sample of Neandertal ossicles to date, including many previously unknown specimens, covering a wide geographic and temporal range. Microcomputed tomography scans and 3D geometric morphometrics were used to quantify shape and functional properties of the ossicles and the tympanic cavity and make comparisons with recent and extinct AMHs as well as African apes. We find striking morphological differences between ossicles of AMHs and Neandertals. Ossicles of both Neandertals and AMHs appear derived compared with the inferred ancestral morphology, albeit in different ways. Brain size increase evolved separately in AMHs and Neandertals, leading to differences in the tympanic cavity and, consequently, the shape and spatial configuration of the ossicles. Despite these different evolutionary trajectories, functional properties of the middle ear of AMHs and Neandertals are largely similar. The relevance of these functionally equivalent solutions is likely to conserve a similar auditory sensitivity level inherited from their last common ancestor.