Italy's first Neanderthal dates back 250,000 years

The Local ^ | November 4, 2015 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Neanderthal man arrived on the Italian peninsular some 100,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a study set to be published this month.

The discovery was made after researchers analyzed radioactive deposits that were found in sediments present inside two Neanderthal skulls unearthed in a gravel pit Saccopastore, Lazio, in the 1930s.

The site of the dig is now occupied by an eastern section of Rome's ring road.

"The results of our studies show that the Saccopastore remains are 100,000 years older than previously thought -- and push back the arrival of Neanderthal man in Italy to 250,000 years ago," said Fabrizio Marra, a researcher who carried out the study with the Italian Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV).

Speaking of the importance of the findings, Marra said they had changed the conceptions about the distribution of the proto-humans across Europe, "putting the arrival of Neanderthal man in Italy at roughly the same time as his arrival in central Europe."

The discovery also solves a mystery that had been plaguing paleontologists for years: the fact that the eleven stone artefacts found at Saccopastore seemed older than the original dating suggested.

The research was carried out by an interdisciplinary team of geologists from INGV alongside paleontologists and anthropologists from Rome's Sapienza University and the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the US...

Until now, the oldest Neanderthal specimen in Italy was thought to be the so-called Altamura man, a limestone encrusted Neanderthal skeleton which was found in a cave in Puglia in 1993.

In spite of the new research not much is known about humanity's early ancestor, who was just 0.12 percent genetically different to modern man and became extinct 40,000 years ago.

[gleeaikin]

So do chimps et al have 24 pairs, or were they also miscounted? And do you know the situation for Bonobos? I seem to recall a similar story regarding Aristotle regarding the number of teeth horses have. There were great philosophical arguments supporting different numbers, and then Aristotle said they should just count them.

[SunkenCiv]

Chimps (including Bonobos) have 24 pairs.

Thanks, that Aristotle reference was interesting — seemed awfully reasonable for Aristotle, who was a total martinet in his conclusions about things.

http://tikalon.com/blog/blog_archive/2006/September.html#the_philosophers_tooth

[BroJoeK]

mountainlion: "It would be nice if they gave the methodology and data instead of just the opinion or theories."

There are several methods, all highly technical in their descriptions, and each produces somewhat different results.
For anybody who wished to debate the merits of one method versus another, that would be a lengthy book, not a short summarized article.

But I would argue those precise numbers are somewhat irrelevant, since the main point they demonstrate is that humans are all very closely related to each other, pretty closely related to some others, like Neanderthals, not so closely related to chimpanzees & other great apes, and only distantly related to other mammals, vertebrates, animals, etc.
So the precise numbers are somewhat irrelevant, since they all demonstrate those facts.

[SunkenCiv]

for later:

Neanderthals mated with modern humans much earlier than previously thought, study finds
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-02/cshl-nmw021516.php