The relation between stone tools and human skeletons in the Ranis Upper Palaeolithic Site, Isenhöhle
Stone tools and human skeletons can be used to help determine whether the excavated levels were associated with Neanderthals or modern humans during the period when both groups were present in Europe. Mylopotamitaki et al.1, writing in Nature, and Pederzani et al.2 and Smith et al.3, writing in Nature Ecology & Evolution, report their analyses of Ilsenhöhle, an archaeological site from this period near Ranis, Germany. The findings shed light on the environmental conditions there and identify the inhabitants linked to a widespread stone-tool industry in the region, for which the associated population was previously unknown.
Bachellerie, F. Quelle Unité pour le Châtelperronien?: The Apport was about the Analyse Taphonomique and the Techno-conomique des industries Lithiques de Trois Gisements Aquitains de Plein Air. The PhD thesis was at the Univ. Bordeaux 1 (2011).
An extensive set of radiocarbon dates from both collections as well as ancient DNA analysis show that the Hlle excavation has a correlation with our layers 9–8. Layer 8 has the highest lithic density of any layer in the Upper Palaeolithic and is the main occupation of the LRJ. Although we did not recover any diagnostic points, two of the artefacts from our excavations are fragmented blades (Fig. The blanks for the blade points are 1c,d. Baltic flint was the main material for most of the artefacts from layers 9 and 8 (Supplementary Table 3). This shows a connection of the Ranis LRJ to the lowlands north of the site where the flint was procured. Three small leaves coming from surface shaping and edge changing are made of quartzite. This raw material also occurs in a few artefacts from the 1932–1938 excavation (Supplementary Table 1). There is a fragment that may be a leaf point. Except for one chunk, layer 7 contained no artefacts, but a few flint chips were found during sorting of screened excavated sediment from the layer contact 8/7 (Supplementary Table 3). The artefacts are placed in the archaeological horizon of layers 9–8. In contrast to the LRJ layers, flint artefacts are absent in the underlying layers 10 and 11. A similar low-frequency usage of flint has also been reported for layer XI of the 1932–1938 excavation17.
The Ranis site is a distinct one because of it’s unique composition of bifacial and unifacial points. The Orla River valley is where Ranis is located. 1b). The south-facing cliff is where the cave formed. 1a and Supplementary Fig. 2a). Only two short chambers remain intact from a formerly large and high chamber that collapsed during the late Pleistocene17. Fieldwork started in 1926, continuing in 1929 and 1931, but the site was mainly excavated by W. M. Hülle between 1932 and 1938 (Extended Data Figs. Supplementary figs. 3 and 1b were added. A layer known as X and Graue Schicht wasrich in bifacial leaf points near the base of the 8-m sequence. 2c) and with Jerzmanowice blade points (Fig. 1f and Supplementary Fig. 2d). This layer shows the Ranisian as part of the LRJ.
We constructed a chronological model based on 28 radiocarbon dates from newly excavated material from layers 11–7, including directly dated human remains, anthropogenically modified bones and charcoal. An average yield of 11.8% was the highest in the range of 5.7–16.3%. Only one date in the model was identified as an outlier, highlighting the stratigraphic integrity of the layers. At the base, layer 11 contains undiagnostic artefacts that date to over 50,000 cal bp. The dates for layers 9 and 8 are 46,820 and 43,265 cal bahs and they are associated with the LRJ. The overlying layer 7 dates to 45,890–39,110 cal bp and is sealed by the roof collapse. Six newly identified human bones from the 1930’s collection were radiocarbon dated and thought to be associated with the LRJ. These dates (46,950–42,200 cal bp at 95.4% probability) fit within the range of dates obtained in our model for layers 9 and 8 (Fig. 2 and Extended Data Fig. 3), thus providing additional support for linking the LRJ of layer X (1930s) with our layers 9 and 8.
We tested some of the hominin remains to make sure their ancient mtDNA was preserved. Between 4,413 and 175,688 unique reads mapping to the human mtDNA reference genome were recovered per skeletal fragment. These mtDNA reads had elevated frequencies of cytosine (C)-to-thymine (T) substitutions (32.6% to 49.6% on the 5′ end and 19.0% to 47.9% on the 3′ end, respectively; Supplementary Figs. 14–24), which are indicative of ancient DNA. Positions shown to be informative for differentiating between H. sapiens, Neanderthal and Denisovan mtDNA genomes enabled us to identify each of the 11 skeletal fragments as belonging to ancient H. sapiens (Supplementary Table 18). Libraries from ten of the eleven skeletal fragments contained sufficient data for reconstructing near-complete mtDNA genomes. There were no pairswise differences among the five mtDNA genomes that were covered, which indicates that they come from either an individual or maternally related person. Additional support is provided to the correlation of layers 9 and 8 with layer X by four of these fragments. The morphology and stable isotopic values20 of R10874 suggest that it originates from a different individual, consistent with a maternal relation. When placed onto a tree with other ancient humans, the haplogroup N had nine of the 10 reconstructed mtDNA genomes. There are two supplementary figs. 26 and 27. The radiocarbon dates from layers 9 and 8 were consistent with the mean genetic dates of the Ranis mtDNA genomes.
