At the Crossroads of Europe and Asia: Human evolution in the Central Balkans

巴尔干半岛是了解欧洲人民的关键地区，从人类祖先最初迁入欧洲大陆，到尼安德特人的起源及其从欧洲传播到中亚，到现代人的到来和尼安德特人在最后一次冰川时期的灭绝。中巴尔干半岛--萨瓦河和多瑙河以南，希腊以北--在更新世时代发挥了两个重要作用，一个是从黎凡特、安纳托利亚和高加索地区到欧洲的移民走廊之间的十字路口，另一个是在冰川时期为人类和动植物提供庇护的三个南部半岛之一。我们在该区域的工作已经挑战了欧洲一些流行的关于人类进化的观点，我们预计，拟议的研究将采用新的原始人材料，并侧重于人类迁徙和定居的古环境限制，将进一步有助于改变人类进化的图景和欧洲大陆原始人群体之间的相互作用。 我们最近在塞尔维亚Mala Balanica遗址(BH-1)发现的人类下颌骨，分类学上被鉴定为海德堡人(Homo Heidelbergensis)，可以追溯到距今50万年(KBP)，表明该地区的人类群体并不遵循在更西边观察到的尼安德尔化的相同过程，并促使我们在最近的一篇论文中重新定义海德堡人。大约270 kBP左右，现代人DNA遗传转移到尼安德特人血统中的发现支持我们对海德堡人的解释，表明早期尼安德特人与不同的古老种群之间有接触。需要更多来自巴尔干中部地区的原始人化石来检验该模型的有效性，并更好地定义这一所谓的“不同种群”。 拟议的研究计划包括我与塞尔维亚同事共同指导的三个同时进行的项目：1)调查和挖掘巴尔干中部更新世地区，以确定、挖掘和测定潜在的人类遗址；2)将出土的原始人类材料与同期标本进行比较分析(包括古代DNA)；3)了解和测定巴尔干中部环境变化和人类在更新世期间的适应。这些项目的基础是国际多学科合作以及加拿大和塞尔维亚学生的参与。

The Balkan Peninsula is a crucial area for understanding the peopling of Europe, from the initial movement of human ancestors into the continent, through the origin of Neanderthals and their spread from Europe into Central Asia, to the arrival of modern humans and the extinction of the Neanderthals during the last glacial period. The Central Balkans - south of the Sava and Danube rivers and north of Greece - played two important roles in the Pleistocene era as the crossroads between corridors of migration from the Levant, Anatolia and Caucasus regions to Europe, and one of the three southern peninsulas that provided refuge to humans, animals and plants during glaciations. Our work in the region has already challenged some of the prevalent ideas about human evolution in Europe and we expect that the proposed research, with new hominin material and a focus on the palaeoenvironmental constraints of human movement and settlement, will further contribute to changing the picture of human evolution and interactions between hominin groups on the continent. Our recent find of the human mandible from the site of Mala Balanica in Serbia (BH-1), taxonomically identified as Homo heidelbergensis and dated to 500 thousand years before present (kBP), demonstrated that human populations in this area did not follow the same process of Neanderthalisation' observed further west, and prompted us to redefine H. heidelbergensis in a recent paper. Findings of the genetic transfer of modern human DNA into the Neanderthal lineage around 270 kBP support our interpretation of H. heidelbergensis, suggesting contact between early Neanderthals and a different archaic population. More hominin fossils from the Central Balkans are necessary to test the validity of the model, and to better define this purported “different population”. The proposed research program consists of three concurrent projects that I am co-directing with colleagues from Serbia: 1) survey and excavation of Pleistocene areas in the Central Balkans to identify, excavate and date potential hominin-bearing sites; 2) comparative analysis (including ancient DNA) of the excavated hominin material with contemporaneous specimens; 3) understanding and dating environmental changes in the Central Balkans and human adaptation during the Pleistocene. These projects are based on an international multidisciplinary collaboration and involvement of both Canadian and Serbian students.