Human Paleontology and Chronology of the Early Modern Humans from Pestera Muierii and Pestera Cioclovina, Romania

正在进行的对旧世界早期现代人类化石遗骸的研究记录了它们表现出衍生的现代人类特征和从早期晚期古人类保留下来的可变古人类特征的复杂组合。 然而，能够可靠地追溯到28，000多年前的早期现代人类的样本量很小，而且由于最近对一些据称是早期标本的直接测年结果，它已经变得更小了，在过去的10，000年内。 在此背景下，来自罗马尼亚的两个重要样本，来自Pestera Ciocloquis的孤立头骨和来自Pestera Muierii的部分骨骼变得重要，因为它们分别直接被放射性碳测得为29，000年和30，000年前。 由于前者的描述很少，而后者则未被描述，研究人员建议在人类遗骸和相关考古和非人类古生物遗骸的额外直接测年的背景下，对这些重要的早期现代人类化石进行详细的形态学和古生物学分析和描述。 这项研究将为这些重要的人类遗骸提供更坚实的年代和考古背景，测试它们是否与来自同一地点的Aurignacian遗骸有关。 它还将产生详细的古生物学数据，以便将其纳入与现代人类的出现、其时空分布及其生物学有关的信息库。 由此产生的年代测定和古生物学分析将为现代人类出现和扩散的关键时期提供重要数据，这些数据可用于评估有关现代人类出现的年表，现代人类系统发育起源，现代人类生物学独特性的持续问题，早期现代人类种群分散的行为和生存性质，以及现代人类生物进化的背景。 现代人类在更新世晚期出现的研究是一个广泛的公众（以及学术）兴趣的话题，正如全球媒体报道的新人类古生物学发现和新的分析所证明的那样，这些发现和分析提供了对我们进化历史的事件，模式和过程的洞察。 这一点从全球媒体对每一项新发现或具有启发性的分析的反复报道中显而易见。 建议对Ciocloquilli和Muierii人类化石进行测年和分析，将有助于培养这种兴趣，这种兴趣最终与对我们在自然界中的地位以及现代人类生物学和多样性的进化根源的关注有关。 这项研究还将有助于促进罗马尼亚的国际科学合作和基础设施支持，尽管罗马尼亚科学界的许多成员作出了努力，但罗马尼亚的科学和经济仍在从过去的政治中恢复过来。 由于其中两名人员是罗马尼亚的博士候选人，这将有助于他们的教育形成，并加强他们在布加勒斯特各自科学机构的计划。

Ongoing research on early modern human fossil remains across the Old World is documenting that they exhibit a complex mix of derived modern human features and variable archaic features retained from earlier late archaic humans. However, the sample size of early modern humans securely dated to more than 28,000 years ago is small, and it has grown smaller as a result of the recent direct dating of a number of purportedly early specimens to within the past 10,000 years. In the context of this, two important samples from Romania, the isolated skull from Pestera Cioclovina and the partial skeleton(s) from Pestera Muierii become important, since they are directly radiocarbon dated to 29,000 and 30,000 years ago respectively. Since the former is minimally described and the latter undescribed, the researchers propose to provide a detailed morphological and paleobiological analysis and description of these important early modern human fossils, in the context of additional direct dating of the human remains and associated archeological and non-human paleontological remains. The research will provide a firmer chronological and archeological context for these important human remains, testing whether they are associated with Aurignacian remains from the same sites. It will also generate detailed paleontological data for their integration into the corpus of information relating to the emergence of modern humans, their dispersal in time and space and their biology. The resultant dating and paleontological analyses will provide significant data for a critical period in the emergence and dispersal of modern humans, data which can be used to evaluate ongoing scenarios concerning the chronology of modern human emergence, modern human phylogenetic origins, ongoing issues of modern human biological distinctiveness, the behavioral and subsistence nature of dispersing early modern human populations, and the background for ongoing modern human biological evolution. The study of modern human emergence in the Late Pleistocene is a topic of widespread public (as well as academic) interest, as is witnessed by the global media coverage of new human paleontological discoveries and novel analyses which provide insight into the events, patterns and processes of our evolutionary history. This is evident in the recurrent global media coverage of each new discovery or revealing analysis. The proposed dating and analyses of the Cioclovina and Muierii human fossils will serve to foster this interest, which is ultimately related to concerns about our place in nature and the evolutionary roots of modern human biology and diversity. The research will also help to foster international scientific collaboration and infrastructural support in Romania, a country which is scientifically and economically still recovering from its political past, despite the efforts of many members of its scientific community. And since two of the personnel are doctoral candidates in Romania, it will contribute to their educational formation, and enhance the programs at their respective scientific institutions in Bucharest.