For the first time in science, early biological connections between the two human groups that were considered two separate human species have been documented: a combination of Neanderthal and Sapien features in the skeleton of a five-year-old boy from Sahul Cave, approximately 140 years old; the study, led by Prof. Israel Hershkowitz (Tel Aviv University) and in collaboration with CNRS, was published in l'Anthropologie
An international study led by researchers from Tel Aviv University and the French National Center reveals the first scientific evidence that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens had biological and social contacts and even interbred for the first time in the Land of Israel. The group of researchers discovered a combination of Neanderthal and Homo sapien features in the skeleton of a five-year-old boy discovered in the Sahuol (Hagdi) Cave in Carmel about 90 years ago. The fossil is about 140,000 years old, and this is the oldest human fossil in the world that shows morphological features of these two human groups, which until recently were considered two separate human species.
The research was conducted under the leadership of Prof. Israel Hershkowitz. From the Gray Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at Tel Aviv University and Anne Dambricourt-Melsa from the French National Center for Research. The findings of the historic discovery were published in the journal l'Anthropologie.
The Boy from the Cave of Sahul
"Genetic studies from the last decade show that these two groups exchanged genes with each other," explains Prof. Hershkowitz. "Even today, 40,000 years after the last Neanderthals disappeared, part of our genome, 2 to 6 percent, is of Neanderthal origin. But this gene exchange refers to a much later time period: 60,000 to 40,000 years before our time. Here we are talking about a 140,000-year-old human fossil. In the study, we show that the child's skull, whose general shape resembles Homo sapiens, especially in the curvature of the skull box, has an intracranial blood supply system, a lower jaw, and an inner ear structure that are characteristic of Neanderthals."
For years, Neanderthals were considered a group that evolved in Europe, whose representatives migrated to the Land of Israel only about 70,000 years ago, following the spread of glaciers in Europe. In a groundbreaking study published in 2021 in the prestigious journal Science, Prof. Hershkowitz and his colleagues showed that ancient Neanderthals lived in the Land of Israel as early as 400,000 years ago. This type of human, which Prof. Hershkowitz called "Ramla Eagle Man" (after the archaeological site where it was found, next to the Ramla Eagle Factory), encountered the Homo sapiens groups that began to leave Africa about 200,000 years ago - and according to the findings of the current study, interbred with them. The boy (or girl) from Sahul Cave is the world's earliest fossil evidence of the social and biological ties that were forged between these two populations over thousands of years. The end of the local Neanderthals who were absorbed into the Homo sapiens population, just as happened with the European and later Neanderthals.
Prolonged gene mixing
The researchers reached this conclusion after a series of advanced tests they conducted on the fossil. First, they scanned the skull and jaw with micro-CT (at the Shmonis Family Institute of Anthropology at Tel Aviv University), and from the scans they assembled an accurate 3D model of them. This allowed them to conduct a complex morphological analysis of the anatomical structures (including those that are not visible, such as the inner ear), and to compare them to different hominid populations. In order to study the structure of the blood vessels surrounding the brain, they also created an accurate 3D model of the interior of the skull.
"The fossil we found is the earliest known physical evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens," says Prof. Hershkowitz. "In 1998, a skeleton of a child was discovered in Portugal that shows features of both these human groups. However, this skeleton, which has been nicknamed the 'Lepado Valley Child,' dates back 28,000 years before our era, more than 100,000 years later than the Shol child. Traditionally, anthropologists associate the fossils discovered in Shol cave, along with fossils found in Kefza Cave near Nazareth, with an early group of Homo sapiens. The current study reveals that at least some of the fossils found in Shol cave are the result of ongoing gene infiltration from the local - and long-standing - Neanderthal population into the Homo sapiens population."
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