Unearthed 1.5 Million-Year-Old Human Vertebra Proof of Ancient Humans in Israel

An ancient human vertebra has been uncovered in Israel's Jordan Valley that dates back 1.5 million years ago. With this new discovery, scientists suggest that the specimen is from ancient relatives who migrated from Africa and Eurasia.

A magnificent find shines a light on the most ancient human migrations out of Africa by offering a sign that multiple waves of different hominin species left the continent. The researchers shared their latest discovery in Nature.

Examination of Unearthed Vertebra

Prof. Miriam Belmaker, a paleoanthropologist from The University of Tulsa's Department of Anthropology, resumed the excavations in Ubeidiya with Barzilai under the grant given by the U.S National Science Foundation.

They found a human vertebra while looking at the fossils from the site, now housed at the Hebrew University's National Natural History Collections. They identified it as a human lumbar vertebra which is the earliest fossil evidence of ancient humans discovered in Israel, approximately 1.5 million years old, according to Heritagedaily.

In a report in Dailymail, scientists have analyzed the said fossil, referred to as UB 10749, which was unearthed at an archeological site in Ubeidiya, Jordan Valley, Israel in 1966.

They suggested that the vertebra is likely from a boy aged between six and 12 years at the time of death, for his age, he was tall and could have reached 6.5 tall. The cause of his death is unknown but his remains have the earliest evidence of ancient man discovered in Israel.

Other than the bones of an ancient human, there is a rare collection of extinct animal bones like sabertoothed tigers, mammoths, and a giant buffalo, there are also animals that are not found today in Israel like baboons, warthogs, hippopotamuses, giraffes, and jaguars.

There are also stone artifacts like stone and flint items made and used by ancient humans.

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(Photo : MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)
Bulldozers dig a new construction site at the Jewish settlement of Shvut Rachel in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on January 27, 2020.

One of the lead researchers of Bar Ilan University, Dr. Alon Barash said that it seems that in the period known as the Early Pleistocene, they can identify at least two species of early humans outside of Africa.

He also said that each wave of migration was that of different kinds of humans - in appearance and form, technique and tradition of manufacturing stone tools, and ecological niche in which they lived.

Professor Miriam Belmaker said that one of the main questions regarding the human dispersal from Africa were the ecological conditions that may have facilitated the dispersal.

Their new finding of different human species in Dmanisi and Ubeidiya is consistent with our finding that climates also differed between the two sites. Ubeidiya is more humid and compatible with a Mediterranean climate, while Dmanisi is drier with savannah habitat.

Use of Technology to Study Evolution

Through fossil and DNA evidence, human evolution can be traced back to around 6 million years. These primates called hominins are modern humans' direct ancestors, and our modern form, Homo sapiens, does not appear in the record until around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago.

Evolution is like a tree, with many branches that lead nowhere. It happens on a long variety and there have been many hominin species that went extinct, the most famous beings are the Neanderthals like Lucy that was found in Ethiopia in 1974, as per The Times of Israel.

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