My 2004 power point presentation supporting my senior seminar thesis. My argument at that time was that the hominids found in the ancient Near East were the results of admixture, as there was shared anatomical features, shared culture, time and space. One population was represented rather than two. Vindication came with Svante Paabo's and the Max Planck Institute's nuclear DNA sequencing and subsequent comparisons of Neandertal DNA from three individuals from Croatia and our own DNA.

1. Re-examination of the
Neandertal and Archaic Homo
sapiens complex in Levantine
Southwest Asia.

2. Major Sites to be Covered.

3. “Neandertal” characteristics
 Low, long skull
 Heavy Brow Ridges
 Robust Skeleton and Cranium
 Retromolar gap.
 No chin.
 Large, cold adapted nose.
 Occipital Bun

4. Cro-Magnon Man, or AMHS, from
Europe.

5. “Classic” Neandertals from
Western Europe.

6. Qafzeh.

7. Qafzeh Skull, considered to be
AMHS.

8. Qafzeh

9. Qafzeh VI, also considered
AMHS

10. Skhul

11. Skhul, also considered AMHS

12. Skhul side view.

13. Location of Amud.

14. Amud.

15. Amud 1

16. Amud 1.

17. Amud Comment:
 Don Johansen (1994): “Amud I shows
affinities with the neandertals of Shandiar
Cave in Iraq and Tabun, but is also has
some similarities to the Skhul and Qafzeh
populations of early Homo sapiens.”

18. Kebara.

19. Tabun.

20. A Neandertal with a Chin!
 Neandertals have been referred to affectionately
as “chinless wonders”, as they do not
characteristically possess a chin.
 At the Tabun site, specimen II Rak(1998) states:
“I would like to stress, therefore, that my
insistence on recognizing a true chin in Tabun II
is based on the topography of the anterior
section of the mandible, which consists of the
unique morphological components defined as
constituting a true chin”.

21. Amud and Skhul compared.

22. Qafzeh VI and Tabun Compared.

23. Qafzeh IX and Skhul VI

24. Shared Time.

25. Thermoluminescence Dates
 Tabun 386-151 kya
 Qafzeh 102-85 kya
 Skhul 119-118 kya
 Kebara 61.6-48.3 kya
 Amud 70-50 kya

26. Electron Spin Resonance Dates
TABUN 386-151 kya
AMUD 59-43 kya

27. Time Line Conflict for linear
evolution/gradualism
 The problem arises here that the supposed
AMHS sites of Qafzeh and Skhul predate some
of the supposed Neandertal sites.
 Explanations of why this situation resulted is the
“ebb and flow theory”, where cold adapted
Neandertals come down when the glaciers
expand, and AMHS retreat to Africa.
 Bar-Yosef describes the Levant as the “central
bus station”

28. Multiregional Evolution vs.
Replacement Theories.
 Multiregional Evolution posits that our species
evolved in the various areas that Homo
erectus/ergaster colonized in the first ‘out of
Africa’ migration, and evolved into AMHS with a
constant gene flow out of Africa
 Replacement Theory says there were only two
migrations out of Africa, with the latter one
coming ~100 kya and replacing all prior
homininds completely

29. Shared Technology and Culture.
 At all sites in the Levant, the Mousterian
Culture is present and dominant.
 Earlier Levallois technology is present at
the oldest site of Tabun, which is to be
expected
 There is no technological ‘tool kit’ in the
Levant comparable to the advances
present in Cro-Magnon sites in Europe.

30. Mousterian Technology.

31. More Mousterian Technology

32. My argument.
 Shared/overlapping time.
 Shared/overlapping space.
 Shared/overlapping morphology.
 Shared material culture in the form of the
Mousterian technology.
 If you have all of these represented in one
region, you have one variable population
and not two separate species.

33. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ne
anderthals/skulls.html