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

摘要2006年6月，在印度兰普拉对纳尔默达河下游河谷进行的古人类学调查中，发现了一个晚更新世时期的个体墓葬。 这一发现代表了印度这一时期的第一个完整骨架。 本研究的重点是清理，重建，并收集形态和古生物学数据，从这个标本。 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。 虽然众所周知，人类祖先从最早的更新世开始就占据了非洲以外的地区，但这些古老的人口与最早的智人成员之间的关系是一个有很大争议的话题。 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口杂交，或者没有混合就被取代。 如果发现兰普拉标本表现出混合亚洲/非洲的特征，这表明来自两个地区的多方向传播，以及在地理上处于中间位置的地区（如南亚）具有古代/现代形态的种群的混合。 这也否定了亚洲是“进化的死胡同”的假设。“如果该标本仅表现出非洲形态，这表明了一种通过从非洲分散现代人类来取代当地古代人口的情景。

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.