SGER: An Analysis of Late Pleistocene Human Fossil Remains from a Burial in Rampura, Gujarat, Western India

2006年6月，在印度兰普拉进行的一次古人类调查中，发现了一具晚更新世个体的墓葬。这一发现代表了印度这一时期的第一具完整骨架。本研究的重点是该标本的清理、重建和形态学和古生物学数据的收集。对兰普拉化石形态的分析结果将揭示人类进化研究中的一个紧迫问题：现代人类起源的过程。众所周知，早在更新世时期，人类祖先就居住在非洲以外的地区，但这些古老人群与最早的智人之间的关系一直是一个争论不休的话题。争论的问题是，来自非洲的早期现代人是否与旧大陆现存的古代人杂交，或者在没有混合的情况下取代了他们。如果发现Rampura标本表现出混合的亚洲/非洲特征，这表明来自这两个地区的多方向分散以及在地理上的中间区域（如南亚）具有古代/现代形态的种群混合。它还反驳了亚洲是“进化死胡同”的假设。如果标本只显示了非洲人的形态，这就表明了一种情景，即从非洲分散出来的现代人取代了当地的古代人口。

AbstractA Late Pleistocene burial of a single individual from Rampura, India was discovered during a paleoanthropological survey of the Lower Narmada River Valley in June 2006. The find represents the first full skeleton from this time period in India. The present study focuses on the cleaning, reconstruction, and collection of morphological and paleobiological data from this specimen. The results of analyses of the morphology of the Rampura fossil will shed light on a pressing question in human evolutionary studies: that of the process of modern human origins. While it is well known that human ancestors occupied regions outside of Africa from the earliest Pleistocene, the relationship of these archaic populations to the earliest members of Homo sapiens is a subject of great debate. At issue is the question of whether early modern human populations from Africa interbred with, or replaced without admixture, existing archaic populations throughout the Old World. If the Rampura specimen is found to exhibit mixed Asian/African features, this suggests multidirectional dispersals from both regions and a mixing of populations with archaic/modern morphology in geographically intermediate areas such as South Asia. It also disproves assumptions that Asia was an "evolutionary dead end." If the specimen exhibits exclusively African morphology, this suggests a scenario of replacement of local archaic populations by dispersing modern humans from Africa.