April 9 (BTA) - The earliest Homo sapiens found so far has been proved by remains located in the Bacho Kiro cave near Dryanovo, North Central Bulgaria, the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NIAM-BAS) said. The discovery was made last year.

Last year, a NIAM-BAS team and another from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany announced the discovery of Homo sapiens remains in the Bacho Kiro cave which radiocarbon dated between 43,000 and 46,000 years. The discovery recorded the oldest so far known Homo sapiens dating from the Late Palaeolithic in Europe, moving the time of this large cultural transition back in time. This is the oldest known presence of contemporary Homo sapience in Eurasian mid-latitudes.

Mateja Hajdinjak and her colleagues have sequenced the genomes of five individuals established in Bacho Kiro cave. Four of them are aged 43,000-46,000 years. Another, found in the upper layers of the cave, is dated about 35,000 years, and is probably associated with the later Aurignac culture.

Comparing the genomes of these individuals with those of people who lived later in Europe and Asia, the scientists from Max Planck found that the early human group had a genetic contribution to the development of later human populations. Unexpectedly it was found particularly in East Asia and even America, rather than Europe where the people from Bacho Kiro lived. Until now it was assumed that the Homo sapience of the Early Late Paleolithic disappeared without a genetic contribution to contemporary people who arrived later, the scientists said.

The researchers identified Neanderthal DNA in the genomes of the oldest Homo sapience population from Bacho Kiro cave which is a sign of interbreeding.

УThe contemporary populations of our species in Europe are genetically closer to the remains from the later individual dating from about 35,000 ago and found in the upper layers of Bacho Kiro cave,Ф said Nikolai Sirakov and Svoboda Sirakova, who headed the Bulgarian part of the joint Bulgarian-German project. RI/BR
/DT/