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Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia

Nature volume 571, pages 500–504 (2019)Cite this article

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Abstract

Two fossilized human crania (Apidima 1 and Apidima 2) from Apidima Cave, southern Greece, were discovered in the late 1970s but have remained enigmatic owing to their incomplete nature, taphonomic distortion and lack of archaeological context and chronology. Here we virtually reconstruct both crania, provide detailed comparative descriptions and analyses, and date them using U-series radiometric methods. Apidima 2 dates to more than 170 thousand years ago and has a Neanderthal-like morphological pattern. By contrast, Apidima 1 dates to more than 210 thousand years ago and presents a mixture of modern human and primitive features. These results suggest that two late Middle Pleistocene human groups were present at this site—an early Homo sapiens population, followed by a Neanderthal population. Our findings support multiple dispersals of early modern humans out of Africa, and highlight the complex demographic processes that characterized Pleistocene human evolution and modern human presence in southeast Europe.

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Fig. 1: The fossil crania of Apidima 2 and Apidima 1.
Fig. 2: Shape analyses of Apidima 2.
Fig. 3: Shape analyses of Apidima 1.
Fig. 4: Shape analysis of Apidima 1 and Apidima 2.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding authors upon reasonable request.

Change history

  • 12 July 2019

    This article was amended to include the Peer review information, which was missing originally from the Additional Information section.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the European Research Council (ERC CoG no. 724703) and the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 2237). We thank all curators and their institutions for access to original specimens or casts used in this study; T. White, B. Asfaw, M. López-Soza, V. Tourloukis, D. Giusti, G. Konidaris, C. Fardelas and O. Stolis for their input and assistance; A. Balzeau (Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle; MNHN), E. Delson (New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology; NYCEP), L. Leakey (africanfossils.org) for providing access to three-dimensional models of specimens used in our figures. C.S.’s research is supported by the Calleva Foundation and the Human Origins Research Fund. We are grateful to S. Benazzi, E. Delson and I. Hershkovitz for their comments and suggestions.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Paleoanthropology, Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Katerina Harvati, Carolin Röding, Abel M. Bosman, Fotios A. Karakostis & Nicholas C. Thompson

  2. DFG Centre of Advanced Studies ‘Words, Bones, Genes, Tools’, Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Katerina Harvati & Abel M. Bosman

  3. Museum of Anthropology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Katerina Harvati, Nicholas C. Thompson & Mirsini Kouloukoussa

  4. Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia

    Rainer Grün

  5. Centre for Human Evolution Research, Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, UK

    Chris Stringer

  6. Malcolm H. Wiener Laboratory for Archaeological Science, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Athens, Greece

    Panagiotis Karkanas

  7. First Department of Radiology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Vassilis Koutoulidis & Lia A. Moulopoulos

  8. Department of Histology and Embryology, Medical School, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Vassilis G. Gorgoulis & Mirsini Kouloukoussa

  9. Biomedical Research Foundation of the Academy of Athens, Athens, Greece

    Vassilis G. Gorgoulis

  10. Division of Cancer Sciences, Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, Manchester Academic Health Science Centre, Manchester Cancer Research Centre, NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre,, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Vassilis G. Gorgoulis

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  1. Katerina Harvati
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Contributions

K.H., M.K. and V.G.G. designed the research; V.K. and L.A.M. carried out the computed tomography scans; C.R. and A.M.B. generated the virtual reconstructions; K.H., C.S. and C.R. collected comparative data; K.H., C.R., A.M.B., F.A.K. and N.C.T. processed and analysed the data; R.G. dated the specimens; P.K. and R.G. provided stratigraphic and geological interpretations; all authors contributed to compiling the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Katerina Harvati or Vassilis G. Gorgoulis.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature thanks Stefano Benazzi, Eric Delson and Israel Hershkovitz for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Fig. 1 The depositional setting of the Apidima 1 and Apidima 2 specimens.

a, The interior of Apidima Cave A, with the ‘skull breccia’ (red box) before its removal from the cave, shown wedged between the cave walls and near the ceiling. A cross-section of the Apidima 1 cranium can be seen in the bottom left corner of the red box. Note the bedded appearance of the breccia remnant (black dashed line) consisting of different clast sizes and distribution similar to those seen in the talus cone outside the cave in c. b, Cast of the ‘skull breccia’ in the early stages of preparation and cleaning. Apidima 1 is seen on the left, Apidima 2 on the right. c, View of the Apidima site from the sea. Images courtesy and copyright of the Museum of Anthropology, Medical School, National Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Additional views of Apidima 2.

a, Posterior view. b, Superior view. c, Inferior view. Scale bar, 5 cm.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Main steps of reconstruction of Apidima 2.

a–c, Images are the computed surface of the original fossil (a), all segmented fragments (b) and reconstruction 1 from an anterior-superior view (c); segmented fragments are shown in colour and mirrored fragments in grey.

Extended Data Fig. 4 Four manual reconstructions of Apidima 2.

Top row, reconstruction 1 (made by C.R., mirroring criterion). Second row, reconstruction (made by C.R., smoothness criterion). Third row, reconstruction 3 (made by A.B., mirroring criterion). Bottom row, reconstruction 4 (made by A.B., smoothness criterion). Scale bar, 3 cm.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Main steps of reconstruction of Apidima 1.

a–d, Images are the computed surface of the original fossil (a), the cropped scan volume (b), the duplicated and mirrored scan volume (c) and the complete reconstruction (d).

Extended Data Fig. 6 Lateral and posterior views of the parietal region of the four manual reconstructions of Apidima 2.

Images as shown in Extended Data Fig. 4. a, Reconstruction 1 (made by C.R., mirroring criterion). b, Reconstruction 2 (made by C.R., smoothness criterion). c, Reconstruction 3 (made by A.B., mirroring criterion). d, Reconstruction 4 (made by A.B., smoothness criterion).

Extended Data Fig. 7 Posterior cranial morphology.

a, b, Posterior and lateral views of the Apidima 1 reconstruction. c, d, Posterior and lateral views of Apidima 2 reconstruction 1. e, f, Posterior and lateral views of the three-dimensional model of La Chapelle-aux-Saints (Neanderthal). g, h, Posterior and lateral views of the three-dimensional model of La Ferrassie 1 (Neanderthal). e–h, Images courtesy of A. Balzeau (MHNH). i, j, Posterior and lateral views of Elandsfontein (MPA). Images courtesy of C.S. k, l, Posterior and lateral views of the three-dimensional model of Sima de los Huesos Cranium 5, cast (MPE). Images courtesy of E. Delson (NYCEP). m, n, Posterior and lateral views of Skhul 5 (H. sapiens). Images courtesy of C.S. o, p, Posterior and lateral views of the three-dimensional model of Eliye Springs (MPA). Images reproduced with permission from https://africanfossils.org/. Scale bar, 5 cm.

Extended Data Fig. 8 Midsagittal profile shape index.

Values calculated from the dataset used in analysis 4 (midsagittal posterior cranial profile), based on the axis between the mean Neanderthal and mean modern African shape. Apidima 1 and the remaining fossil samples are projected onto this axis. Violins extend from the minimum to the maximum value; boxes show the 25–75% quartiles and lines indicate the median. Samples as in Fig. 3b, symbols as in Fig. 2; modern Africans, green dots (n = 15).

Extended Data Fig. 9 Apidima 1 reconstruction superimposed manually with Apidima 2 reconstruction 1.

Aidima 1 is shown in yellow; Apidima 2 is shown in rainbow. a, Lateral view. b, Posterior view. c, Ventral view.

Extended Data Table 1 Classification results
Full size table

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This file contains Supplementary Text Sections 1-4, including Supplementary Figures S1-S2 and Supplementary Tables S1-9.

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Harvati, K., Röding, C., Bosman, A.M. et al. Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia. Nature 571, 500–504 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1376-z

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