Sinkhole In Israel Exposes A Mysterious Species Of Ancient Human

The archaeologists had managed to find bits of an ancient skull and jaw, both of which had come from the same being. They also unearthed the bones of a variety of animals, and separately tools made of stone. Whoever this human had been, then, it seems they used to hunt in this spot.

That would make sense because all of these ancient remains were found in a sinkhole. Though debris had come to fill up this chasm over the millennia, experts believe that it was once an open watering hole for animals to drink from. So the ancient human and its companions would likely have come here to pick off their prey.

But we already know that ancient humans hunted animals, so why all the furore over this case? Well, it’s down to the specific individual these remains belonged to. When they were studied, it became clear that they weren’t what you’d expect. They were about, in fact, to be branded a “major discovery.”

The bones hadn’t come from a member of the Homo sapiens species, first off. This meant that this individual hadn’t been totally the same as us modern humans. But the thing is, it’s not clear what sort of human this creature was. It may have been a species, in fact, that we never even knew existed until now.

The bones were discovered by a group of researchers associated with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. And they’d been working just outside of the Israeli city of Ramla, which is situated to the southeast of Tel Aviv. Their discovery generated excitement within archaeological circles, but it was far from the first to come out of Israel in recent times.

Excavations throughout Israel have proven to be extremely fruitful over the last few years. At the beginning of 2018 word spread about some bones that’d been found in one of the country’s caves, for instance. These remains were from Homo sapiens, but their age and specific location called into question our very understanding of our ancestors’ history.

The remains were found as part of an archaeological project that began at the start of the 2000s. Led by Tel Aviv University’s Israel Hershkowitz and the University of Haifa’s Mina Weinstein-Evron, the investigation was trying to learn more about the early history of Homo sapiens. 

While the archaeologists were working in what is known as the Misliya Cave, they ended up finding an ancient jaw and some teeth. They then subjected these fossils to analysis, which eventually put a date on them. The bones, they estimated, were between 177,000 and 194,000 years old. Wow! 

Plus the researchers could be fairly confident that the bones had come from Homo sapiens. That’s because the teeth were a similar shape to our own, whereas other human species like the Neanderthal had different kinds of teeth. So although the Neanderthal had been known to live in this region, the experts could be confident it had nothing to do with the remains. 

The Neanderthal, after all, had some very distinct features that made it different to us. Although it was the closest species of human to Homo sapiens that we know of, it still had plenty of variations. The Neanderthal wasn’t as tall and slender as us, while its face was shaped quite differently, too.

Some of the Neanderthal’s behavior, though, was strikingly similar to that of Homo sapiens. The Neanderthal produced and utilized tools, for example, while it also made fires and dressed in clothes. It even appears to have had similar spiritual and artistic tendencies, too. It laid its deceased to rest in the earth and even adorned the spots with flowers.

Conventional wisdom sets out that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens can trace their lineage back to a common ancestor. This forebear is thought to have lived around 300,000 to 700,000 years ago, before its descendants branched off into separate species. This is the story, of course, but new discoveries are constantly challenging the narrative.  

That’s exactly what happened after Hershkowitz and Weinstein-Evron made their discovery in the Israeli cave. The Homo sapiens bones they’d discovered were far older than they might have expected. This implied that the species was present on the Arabian Peninsula quite a bit earlier than conventional wisdom had ever accounted for.

Before this discovery in Israel, it was widely believed that Homo sapiens had started to migrate from its birthplace in East Africa around 60,000 years ago. The species then went on to conquer the rest of the planet, with modern humans managing to establish populations all over. Now, though, things aren’t so clear.

Because discoveries like the one in Israel have called the theory into question – but it’s far from the only one. In Morocco, for instance, Homo sapiens bones were uncovered that were traced back to more than 300,000 years. This could mean that modern humans started to develop in other parts of Africa at an earlier point in time.

Plus some teeth belonging to a Homo sapiens individual were found in the south of China in 2015. These remains were around 120,000 years old, which suggests that humans had traveled far from Africa sooner than we thought. So there’s clearly every need to keep researching the subject, because we ultimately know so little.

That’s why the 2018 discovery from Israel is so important. That the bones were found in this specific region, and were so old, means that we have more evidence to dispel the original story of modern humans’ migration around the world. Early humans, it seems, were in places we never realized.

Israel Hershkowitz, who helped lead the investigation, spoke to the Nature journal about his team’s discovery. And he argued that it suggested the Middle East was a vital region for humans as they set about conquering the world. As he put it, “It was a central train station. People were coming and going through this land corridor from one continent to another, and it was occupied all the time.”

And it wasn’t just Homo sapiens that inhabited the Middle East all those thousands of years ago. DNA studies, for instance, have suggested that Neanderthals were also present in the region at the same time as modern humans. It seems likely that the two species interbred with one another, in fact.

An archaeologist from New York’s Stony Brook University also spoke to Nature about the Middle East and Israel’s place in human history. John Shea said, “We tend to think of Israel as part of Asia for geopolitical reasons, but it is really a transition zone between North Africa and western Asia. Plenty of Afro-Arabian animals live there, or did so until recently... Homo sapiens is just another such Afro-Arabian species.”

With every new archaeological discovery that emerges, our understanding of our species’ history is reshaped. Modern humans have a fascinating past that we’re continuously trying to learn more about, but it’s clear that our story is intrinsically linked with other types of humans, too. And Hershkovitz and Weinstein-Evron have made that even more obvious.

It was once widely thought that Neanderthals came into being in Europe, where they thrived. But the recent consensus on this matter has shifted. Yep, many scientists have come to suspect that Neanderthal DNA actually contains traces from an undiscovered human species – from outside of Europe. And the discovery outside Ramla might just provide the proof for that.

When the bones from Ramla were analyzed, you see, it became clear that they hadn’t come from Homo sapiens. Certain features did, however, appear similar to what you’d expect to see in a Neanderthal specimen – but there were differences. If it looked similar to a Neanderthal, but it had distinct features, then maybe this thing was actually a precursor to the species?

Named after the area where it was discovered, the term “Nesher Ramla Homo type” has been used to describe the potential species that these bones belonged to. Having said that, scientists are currently reluctant to fully commit to this being a unique, previously undiscovered species of human. Because more research is needed first. 

If the Nesher Ramla Homo type really is something different, though, then it changes our understanding of the Neanderthal and where it came from. It tells us that they didn’t necessarily originate from the European continent, which is what was once accepted. Rather, they could have come from the Middle East.

Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Hila May has spoken to BBC News about the discovery and its implications. She said, “It all started in Israel. We suggest that a local group was the source population. During interglacial periods, waves of humans, the Nesher Ramla people, migrated from the Middle East to Europe.”

The researchers have argued that the Nesher Ramla Homo type remains are more archaic than what would be expected in Neanderthals. And given the growing body of evidence suggesting that Neanderthals actually traced back to an earlier human, it seems very possible that the Nesher Ramla might be the missing link. Or at least, one of them. 

Dr. Yossi Zaidner from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem told The Guardian, “Together with other studies, this work shatters the simple picture of modern humans coming out of Africa and Neanderthals living in Europe. The picture is much more complex. The idea is what we catch here are the last survivors of a population that contributed to the development of Neanderthals. They were living alongside Homo sapiens.”

So it could have been that the Nesher Ramla Homo group was living throughout Israel and its surrounding region up to 400,000 years ago. And as Tel Aviv University’s Dr. Rachel Sarig told the BBC, the bones exhibit similarities to other possible Neanderthal precursors, too. She said, “This is the first time we could connect the dots between different specimens found in the Levant.”

Dr. Sarig went on, “There are several human fossils from the caves of Qesem, Zuttiyeh and Tabun that date back to that time that we could not attribute to any specific known group of humans. But comparing their shapes to those of the newly uncovered specimen from Nesher Ramla justify their inclusion within the [new human] group.”

Thus this research suggests, in short, that the Neanderthal originally came from a human species that lived in the Levant. Members of this species then made their way into Europe, where they evolved into Neanderthals. Others, meanwhile, migrated into Asia. As Israel Hershkovitz explained to the BBC, “Some fossils found in East Asia manifest Neanderthal-like features as the Nesher Ramla do.”

And let’s not forget that the Nesher Ramla discovery was made inside a sinkhole alongside tools and animal remains. When the experts analyzed the tools, they realized that they were really similar to the implements that Homo sapiens are known to have crafted during the same period. Curiouser and curiouser we get...

Speaking to the BBC, Dr. Yossi Zaidner explained why the similarities in each species’ tools and implements is such an exciting prospect for scientists. He said, “It was a surprise that archaic humans were using tools normally associated with Homo sapiens. This suggests that there were interactions between the two groups.”

This point calls into question our very understanding of how human knowledge has been acquired and passed on. Dr. Zaidner elaborated, “We think that it is only possible to learn how to make the tools through visual or oral learning. Our findings suggest that human evolution is far from simple and involved many dispersals, contacts and interactions between different species of human.”

The discovery of the Nesher Ramla bones, then, has caused a great stir within archaeological circles. But not everybody is convinced by the findings and the theories that have sprung from them. A professor from London’s Natural History Museum, for instance, has been more cautious to jump to conclusions.

Speaking to the BBC, Professor Chris Stringer said, “Nesher Ramla is important in confirming yet further that different species co-existed alongside each other in the region at the time and now we have the same story in western Asia. However, I think it’s a jump too far at the moment to link some of the older Israeli fossils to Neanderthals. I’m also puzzled at suggestions of any special link between the Nesher Ramla material and fossils in China.”

Despite Stringer’s reservations, plenty of experts have taken an interest in the developments. Professor Marta Mirazón Lahr from the University of Cambridge, for one, is looking forward to learning more. She told The Guardian, “The hominin fossils from Nesher Ramla now suggest that a different population, with anatomical features more archaic than those of both humans and Neanderthals, lived in this region at broadly the same time.”

Prof. Lahr continued, “The interpretation of the Nesher Ramla fossils and stone tools will meet with different reactions among paleoanthropologists. Notwithstanding, the age of the Nesher Ramla material, the mismatched morphological and archaeological affinities and the location of the site at the crossroads of Africa and Eurasia make this a major discovery.”

There are strong reasons to agree with Lahr’s analysis here. This fossil does indeed appear to be a major discovery, one that may help us to learn more about how humans came to be. There are plenty more things to learn, of course, and discover. So who knows what’s lying in wait for us at the next excavation site...