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

摘要 2006 年 6 月，在对纳尔默达河下游河谷进行古人类学调查时，发现了来自印度兰普拉的更新世晚期的一具个体墓葬。这一发现代表了印度这一时期的第一具完整骨骼。 本研究的重点是清理、重建和收集该标本的形态学和古生物学数据。 兰普拉化石的形态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，人类祖先从最早的更新世起就占领了非洲以外的地区，但这些古老人群与最早的智人成员的关系仍然是一个备受争议的话题。 争论的焦点是，来自非洲的早期现代人类是否与整个旧世界现有的古代人类进行了杂交，或者在没有混合的情况下取代了它们。 如果兰普拉样本被发现表现出亚洲/非洲的混合特征，这表明这两个地区存在多向扩散，并且在南亚等地理中间地区存在着古代/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。如果标本仅表现出非洲形态，这表明当地古代人口被从非洲分散的现代人类所取代。

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.