Zlatý kůň woman

{{Short description|Human fossil found in the Czech Republic}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}

{{Infobox fossil

|catalog number =

|image = Skeletal remains from Zlatý kůň.jpg

|caption = Skeletal remains

|species = Human

|age = {{circa}} 43,000 years

|place discovered = Koněprusy, Central Bohemia, Czechia

|date discovered = 1950

|common name = Zlatý kůň woman

|discovered by =

}}

File:Map of human fossils with an age of at least ~40,000 years that yielded genome-wide data and location of the Zlatý kůň fossil.webp

The Zlatý kůň woman is the fossil of an ancient woman, an Early European modern human, dated to around 43,000 years ago. She was discovered in the Koněprusy Caves in the Czech Republic in 1950.

The Zlatý kůň woman is either associated with non-Mousterian and non-Initial Upper Paleolithic cultures or with early IUP-like cultures, one of the earliest cultures of modern humans in Europe, which expanded into Eurasia more than 45,000 years ago, following their dispersal out of Africa.{{cite journal |last1=Prüfer |first1=Kay |last2=Posth |first2=Cosimo |title=A genome sequence from a modern human skull over 45,000 years old from Zlatý kůň in Czechia |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |date=June 2021 |volume=5 |issue=6 |pages=820–825 |doi=10.1038/s41559-021-01443-x |pmid=33828249 |pmc=8175239 |bibcode=2021NatEE...5..820P |issn=2397-334X}}{{cite journal |last1=Hublin |first1=Jean-Jacques |last2=Sirakov |first2=Nikolay |title=Initial Upper Palaeolithic Homo sapiens from Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria |journal=Nature |date=11 May 2020 |volume=581 |issue=7808 |pages=299–302 |doi=10.1038/s41586-020-2259-z |pmid=32433609 |bibcode=2020Natur.581..299H |s2cid=218592678 |url=https://kar.kent.ac.uk/81524/1/Hublin%20et%20al%20_authors%20accepted.pdf}}{{cite news |last1=Bower |first1=Bruce |title=The earliest known humans in Europe may have been found in a Bulgarian cave |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/earliest-known-humans-europe-bacho-kiro-bulgaria |work=Science News |date=11 May 2020}} On the basis of genetic dating, the Zlatý kůň individual is believed to be the oldest anatomically modern human ever to be genetically sequenced. Her genome represents a deeply splitting lineage basal to the subsequent split between East Eurasians and West Eurasians.{{Cite journal |last1=Vallini |first1=Leonardo |last2=Marciani |first2=Giulia |last3=Aneli |first3=Serena |last4=Bortolini |first4=Eugenio |last5=Benazzi |first5=Stefano |last6=Pievani |first6=Telmo |last7=Pagani |first7=Luca |year=2022 |title=Genetics and material culture support repeated expansions into Paleolithic Eurasia from a population hub out of Africa |journal=Genome Biology and Evolution |volume=14 |issue=4 |doi=10.1093/gbe/evac045 |pmc=9021735 |pmid=35445261 |quote=Zlatý Kůň can be described as a putative early expansion from the population formed after the major expansion OoA and hybridization with Neanderthals, and could be linked with non-Mousterian and non-IUP cultures found in Europe 48–45 ka or with IUP.}}

These early Eurasian populations probably mated with Neanderthals in the period between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago, probably during the initial phase of their expansion in the Middle East, and they carried ~2–9% Neanderthal ancestry in their genomes. It is also considered that the early modern humans coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for a period of about 3,000–5,000 years. The Zlatý kůň woman had a small amount of Neanderthal admixture, going back 70 or 80 generations.{{cite journal |last1=Churchill |first1=Steven E. |last2=Keys |first2=Kamryn |last3=Ross |first3=Ann H. |title=Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal–Modern Human Interbreeding |journal=Biology |date=August 2022 |volume=11 |issue=8 |pages=1163 |doi=10.3390/biology11081163 |pmid=36009790 |pmc=9404802 |issn=2079-7737|quote="A similarly recent hybridization event (six or seven generations earlier) has been inferred from aDNA of early modern humans at Bacho Kiro, Bulgaria, around 45.9–42.6 Ka [39], while a somewhat more distant event (70–80 generations earlier) has been recognized in the genome of a >45 Ka-old cranium from Zlatý kůň in Czechia" |doi-access=free }}

These people do not appear to have been the ancestors of later Europeans, as the very few ancient DNA samples recovered from this period are not related to later samples.{{cite journal|url=https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00611-2|first=Ewen|last=Callaway|title=Ancient genomes show how humans escaped Europe's deep freeze|journal=Nature News|date=1 March 2023|volume=615 |issue=7951 |pages=197–198 |doi=10.1038/d41586-023-00611-2 |pmid=36859677 |bibcode=2023Natur.615..197C |s2cid=257282687 }} The Zlatý kůň woman also has contributed genetically neither to later Europeans nor to Asians.

{{Phylogenetic tree for ancient Eurasians}}

Among the earliest modern humans that have been directly dated to this period are:{{cite journal |last1=Prüfer |first1=Kay |last2=Posth |first2=Cosimo |title=A genome sequence from a modern human skull over 45,000 years old from Zlatý kůň in Czechia |journal=Nature Ecology & Evolution |date=June 2021 |volume=5 |issue=6 |pages=820–825 |doi=10.1038/s41559-021-01443-x |pmid=33828249 |pmc=8175239 |bibcode=2021NatEE...5..820P |issn=2397-334X|quote="A complete genome has been produced from the ~45,000-year-old remains of Ust'-Ishim, a Siberian individual who showed no genetic continuity to later Eurasians. This contrasts with the ~40,000-year-old East Asian individual from Tianyuan, whose genome is more closely related to many present-day Asians and Native Americans than to Europeans. From Europe, only the partial genome of an individual called Oase 1 and dated to ~40 ka has been recovered, and this showed no evidence of shared ancestry with later Europeans"}}

• an individual from 46,000 to 44,000 years ago in the Bacho Kiro cave, located in present-day Bulgaria;
• a 45,000-year-old Ust'-Ishim man (no continuity with later Eurasians);
• a 40,000-year-old Tianyuan man, who is more closely related to modern Asians and Native Americans;
• Oase 1 (no shared ancestry with later Eurasians);
• Fumane 2, {{Circa}} 40,000 BP.