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Oldest European Human Jawbone Discovered

Posted by timothy on from the but-was-he-an-ass dept.

DrLudicrous writes "A research group working in Romania has dated an ancient human jawbone to 35+/-1 thousand years old. This is a few thousand years older than other jawbones found in Europe. What is unusual about this specimen is that it has rather large molars, something that the lead scientist thinks may be an indication of human-Neanderthal interbreeding. Modern DNA studies have indicated that there is little to no traces of this inbreeding, so this raises some interesting questions."

2 of 34 comments (clear)

  1. More Info by poppen_fresh · · Score: 2, Informative

    The lead scientist is a professer at Washington University in St. Louis. There is more info at the university's web site. It turns out there was more than a jawbone found, but the rest of the bones haven't been analyzed yet.

  2. inbreeding != interbreeding by bigsteve@dstc · · Score: 2, Informative
    Re the Slashdot summary text: the terms 'Inbreeding' and 'interbreeding' do not mean the same thing. In fact, they are close to opposites.

    You could call me a nit-picker, but you wouldn't be quite correct :-)