After nine years of study trying to piece together evidence that seemed incompatible, a team of archaeologists has come up with Thorin, one of the last Neanderthals. DNA analysis of the remains, found in 2015 in the Mandrin cave in the Rhône valley (France), shows that this male, aged around 50, belonged to a previously unknown lineage. The data suggest that this group spent 50,000 years genetically isolated from any other. His age, around 45,000 years, places Thorin as one of the last Neanderthals to live before the total extinction of this species, the closest to our own, the Homo sapiensThe discovery raises a host of questions about the mind and culture of the Neanderthals, and their disappearance, which left us the only human species on the planet.
“Did they deliberately seek isolation? Yes, I think so,” admits to this newspaper the paleoanthropologist Ludovic Slimak, veteran researcher of the Mandrin shelter and co-author of the study, published in Cell GenomicsThe French paleontologist announced this discovery in July in an interview with EL PAÍS.
Until now, only one group of Neanderthals was known to exist in this timeline so close to their extinction, some 40,000 years ago. Thorin is believed to have belonged to a second population group that originated around 100,000 years ago, when Europe was relatively warm and covered in forests. But the land where the jaw was found dates back to around 45,000 years ago. It has taken researchers all this time to explain these two apparently irreconcilable facts. The reason is that this second branch of the Neanderthal family tree would have remained completely genetically isolated. And this was so even though Mandrin was about 10 days’ walk from another Neanderthal clan. At that time, Europe was already immersed in ice age and the landscape was a vast grassy steppe. Thorin’s lineage would have formed a small group in that first phase 100,000 years ago and then remained isolated until its disappearance. For Slimak, this discovery offers a unique window into understanding the Neanderthal mind and contrasting it with that of Sapiens.
“We see small groups that, in the end, are not isolated, but live according to their own conceptions,” he argues. “And they seem to be doing well like that, small groups inhabiting their little valleys. In some ways, it’s dazzling.”
In contrast, there would be a Homo sapiens The Neanderthals, who had already arrived in Europe from their original Africa, have established ever-widening connections and communication networks. They are also extremely mobile and know how to kill from a distance. “Sapiens is restless. They always want to see beyond those valleys, those mountains. To discover, to explore, but also to possess. The Neanderthal seems to tell us a completely different story. These two humanities, facing each other as if in a mirror, are a wonderful treasure for understanding not only this extinct humanity, but also what we are ourselves,” Slimak adds.
The study, authored by more than twenty researchers from seven countries, compared Thorin’s genome with that of other known individuals, dating back as far as 120,000 years. Mandrin’s is only the fifth Neanderthal genome less than 50,000 years old.
The last Neanderthals were much fewer than previously thought, just around 2,500 spread out in small tribes probably isolated in the vastness of the European continent, according to a study published two months ago. The genetic data from that study confirmed the ostracism of this species, whether sought or not. Despite the fact that both species interbred on several occasions, had children and accepted them into their clans, the last Neanderthals no longer had even a shred of sapiens DNA, which probably contributed to their disappearance. On the other hand, the sapiens that advanced through Europe had sex and children with their sister species until they ended up assimilating it. As a result of this, all current humans outside of Africa have around 4% Neanderthal DNA. On the other hand, the Neanderthals themselves disappeared forever.
The work on Thorin shows that his closest family ties were in Gibraltar, where a genome belonging to one of the last Neanderthals has also been recovered. Slimak’s team believes that perhaps Thorin’s lineage migrated from the Strait to France, and that possibly other groups yet to be discovered spread along a Mediterranean corridor. His territory could extend to Poland, since there is also some closeness, although less, with Neanderthals from this area of northern Europe.
Slimak has named this Neanderthal after a character from JRR Tolkien. “Thorin represents one of the last dwarf kings under the mountain, and the last of his line. Thorin the Neanderthal is also one of the last of this immense line of humanity so strangely different,” he suggests.
“It is a very interesting study,” Clive Finlayson, a paleoanthropologist who has been excavating in Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar for years, told this newspaper. The researcher, who did not participate in the study, confirmed that “indeed,” there was a corridor along the entire Mediterranean coast of the Peninsula, from Gibraltar to the mouth of the Rhône, and beyond to Liguria (Italy). This corridor is now completely submerged. The beach was up to 4.5 kilometres further away than it is now, and the Neanderthals hunted and fished for their food in this environment. This landscape “resembled today’s Doñana, with dunes, pine forests and lagoons,” the scientist explains. The Neanderthals who exploited this environment would have been genetically connected, divided into populations, along the corridor. Further inland on the Peninsula there were, as there are now, large mountain ranges, which in cold weather would be barriers cutting off access. “So, paradoxically, a Neanderthal in Gibraltar would have more in common with one in the Rhône than with others in the interior of the Peninsula, from whom they would have been isolated for long periods of time,” adds Finlayson.
Antonio Rosas, a CSIC palaeoanthropologist who has studied the Neanderthals who lived in the El Sidrón cave (Asturias) some 50,000 years ago, and among whom there are signs of cannibalism, believes that the proposal is “attractive”. “The Neanderthal world and its social structure would be different. Isolation would be a major factor in their extinction, which fits well with the evidence of inbreeding that we have found in El Sidrón”, he explains. But for the scientist it is “too bold” to propose a genetic hermeticism of 50,000 years, especially when there are other nearby groups. It is “very difficult to conceive for any mammal”. It could only be explained, he points out, by a “Neanderthal idiosyncrasy” opposed to sapiens psychology, centred on contact.
For Antonio Rodríguez-Hidalgo, a prehistorian at the Institute of Archaeology (CSIC-Junta de Extremadura), the work on Thorin “crucially connects palaeogenomic data with social, cultural and historical inferences”. The scientist provides a brighter view of the supposedly solitary mentality of the Neanderthals. “The ability of these populations to survive for so long, in conditions of isolation, speaks of an impressive resilience, but one that is difficult to understand from the perspective of a hyperconnected and diverse society like ours”, he highlights.
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