Paleogeneticists have analyzed DNA extracted from ancient remains found at the Italian Paleolithic site of Riparo Tagliente. Scientists have concluded that the lower jaw and postcranial skeleton bones most likely belonged to one adult male, rather than two individuals, as previously assumed. As reported in an article published in the journal Communications Biology, the age of the remains is more than 16 thousand years.
In the northern Italian province of Verona, there is the Riparo Tagliente karst canopy, an archaeological site of the Middle and Upper Paleolithic, discovered back in 1958. In addition to numerous artifacts, during excavations in the 1960s and 1970s, researchers discovered the remains of Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans. Thus, in 1963, archaeologists found the lower jaw of a Cro-Magnon in the mixed sediments of this site, and ten years later, the burial of a person who had no skull.
Paleoanthropologists determined that both the jaw and the postcranial skeleton belonged to adult men who died at the age of approximately 22–30 years. Despite this, the researchers assumed that the remains probably belonged to two different people who lived in the Epigravettian period. This was indicated, in particular, by the results of radiocarbon analysis. The scientists estimated the age of the rib at 15,570–16,130 years, and the tooth at 16,500–16,980 years, that is, on average, the difference between them was 890 years. In addition, the fact that the remains belonged to two individuals was also hinted at by the analysis of stable isotopes of carbon and nitrogen.
Researchers from Germany and Italy, led by Cosimo Post from the University of Tübingen, have returned to studying these remains. Several years ago, scientists extracted DNA from the lower jaw and teeth found on this site. Its analysis showed that the remains belonged to a man who was a representative of the so-called Villabruna cluster - people who settled across the Apennine Peninsula after the end of the last glacial maximum. He was a carrier of the mitochondrial haplogroup U2′3′4′7′8′9 and the Y-chromosomal haplogroup I2, which were common among European hunter-gatherers at the end of the Upper Paleolithic.
Post and his colleagues updated the age of the remains from Riparo Tagliente. According to updated data, the age of the femur is 16,210–16,360 years, and the mandible is 16,130–16,460 years. In addition, the researchers isolated DNA from the femur to confirm or refute whether the remains from this site belonged to one or two people. Genetic analysis showed that the postcranial skeleton belonged to an individual with the same mitochondrial and Y-chromosome haplogroups.
Further research showed that the Riparo Tagliente remains were most likely from a single individual, or less likely from identical twins. The differences in radiocarbon ages between the finds were likely due to contamination (possibly from the preservation of the bones after excavation). The scientists also noted that the new genome analysis indicated a small effective population size for Epigravettian hunter-gatherers, consistent with previous studies.
Recently, paleogeneticists analyzed the genome of a Cro-Magnon child who lived about 17,000 years ago in what is now Italy. In particular, scientists determined that he had the same mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal haplogroups as the man from Riparo Tagliente.