Kebara 2 (or Kebara Mousterian Hominid 2, KMH2) is a 60,000 year-old
Levantine Neanderthal mid-body male skeleton. It was discovered in 1983 by
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Ofer Bar-Yosef ( he, עופר בר-יוסף; 29 August 1937 – 14 March 2020) was an Israeli archaeologist and anthropologist whose main field of study was the Palaeolithic period.
From 1967 Bar-Yosef was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at ...
,
Baruch Arensburg, and Bernard Vandermeersch in a
Mousterian
The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...
layer of
Kebara Cave
Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above sea level on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, in the Ramat HaN ...
,
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
. To the excavators, its disposition suggested it had been deliberately buried, though like every other putative
Middle Palaeolithic
The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Pale ...
intentional burial, this has been questioned.
Kebara 2 is the most complete post-cranial Neanderthal skeleton ever found and has played a major role in three debates on Neanderthal anatomy and behaviour, namely the anatomical constraints of childbirth, their ability to speak, and the shape and size of their chests. The first of these debates it has helped settle, the second it has not, and the third it has sparked by questioning the barrel-shape that Neanderthal chests were thought to have since they were described by
Hermann Schaaffhausen
Hermann Schaaffhausen (19 July 1816, Koblenz – 26 January 1893, Bonn) was a German anatomist, anthropologist, and paleoanthropologist.
Biography
Hermann Schaaffhausen was the son of Josef Hubert Schaaffhausen and Anna Maria Wachendorf. He st ...
in 1858.
It is currently held at
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
.
Dating
Valladas et al. (1987) obtained a
thermoluminescence
Thermoluminescence is a form of luminescence that is exhibited by certain crystalline materials, such as some minerals, when previously absorbed energy from electromagnetic radiation or other ionizing radiation is re-emitted as light upon h ...
age of 61-59,000 years for Kebara 2's layer, congruent with Schwarcz et al. (1989) who found an age of 64-60,000 years by
electron spin resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) or electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is a method for studying materials that have unpaired electrons. The basic concepts of EPR are analogous to those of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but the sp ...
.
Obstetrical constraints
The skeleton is male, but because it preserved a nearly complete pelvis, it helped settle in the negative the debate as to whether Neanderthals had different obstetrical (childbirth-related) constraints than those of modern humans.
Hyoid bone and speech
Kebara 2 was the first Neanderthal specimen for which the
hyoid bone
The hyoid bone (lingual bone or tongue-bone) () is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. At rest, it lies between the base of the mandible and the third cervical verteb ...
was preserved, a bone found in the throat and closely related to the vocal tract. Its anatomy was virtually identical to a modern one, leading the excavators to controversially suggest that Neanderthals had at least part of the physical requirements for speech. This debate was hotly divisive, with some authors taking the similarities of Neanderthal and modern hyoid bones to mean that Neanderthal had vocal skills comparable to modern humans, and others pointing out that pigs too have hyoid bones similar to those of modern humans. If indeed Neanderthals could speak, they might have had a narrower-than-modern range of vocal sounds, since the skull base of some Neanderthals resembles those of modern human infants more than adults. (Today many authors believe Neanderthal behaviour is too complex to be explained without at least some form of basic language.)
Chest shape and size
Chest shape and size are important in reconstructing the palaeobiology of Neanderthals, the large shape of its thorax having been interpreted as reflecting high activity levels, its adaptation to the cold (though this has been questioned
), and a high body mass. Kebara 2's thorax is the only well-preserved Neanderthal ribcage and has been studied extensively.
In 2005, Sawyer and Maley used the Kebara 2 ribcage and pelvis in their full reconstruction of a Neanderthal skeleton. This was the first time a Neanderthal ribcage was rebuilt. The lower rib area flared, giving the whole ribcage a bell-shaped appearance, rather than the barrel-shaped one Neanderthals were for a century and a half
[ thought to have had.
Gómez-Olivencia et al. (2009)][ used Kebara 2 to reject Franciscus and Churchill's (2002) suggestion that the upper thoraxes of West European Neanderthals, because of their adaptation to the cold, could expand more (along the ]sagittal plane
The sagittal plane (; also known as the longitudinal plane) is an anatomical plane that divides the body into right and left sections. It is perpendicular to the transverse and coronal planes. The plane may be in the center of the body and divid ...
) than those of Near Eastern Neanderthals.
The authors also found that the upper thorax of Kebara 2 was within modern human range, but that the middle and lower thorax is larger than in modern humans. In 2015, a group of French scientists disagreed, and argued against any major deviation of the Kebara 2 thorax from modern human shape and size. Using a 3D scanner they reported but a few minor differences in the lower ribs.
Researchers worried that bony growths on the ribs of the skeleton were indicative of chronic illness, which could compromise the utility of the specimen for generalizable Neanderthal study. In late 2018, Spanish researchers confirmed that endocostal ossifications on right ribs 5, 6, 7, and possibly 8 were likely the result of a genetic disorder, but did not affect the day-to-day life of Kebara 2.
Missing cranium
Bar-Yosef et al. (1992) suggested that the cranium was deliberately removed sometime after the ligaments that attached it to the spine had decomposed. Indeed, the skull and teeth of most Neanderthal specimens are better preserved than the post-cranial body, especially its fragile bones such as the hyoid
The hyoid bone (lingual bone or tongue-bone) () is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. At rest, it lies between the base of the mandible and the third cervical vertebra. ...
and the cervical vertebrae
In tetrapods, cervical vertebrae (singular: vertebra) are the vertebrae of the neck, immediately below the skull. Truncal vertebrae (divided into thoracic and lumbar vertebrae in mammals) lie caudal (toward the tail) of cervical vertebrae. In ...
. Having found most of the post-cranial body, one would have expected to find the skull and teeth.
Notes
References
{{Homo neanderthalensis, state=expanded
Neanderthal fossils
1983 archaeological discoveries
1983 in paleontology
Middle Paleolithic
Prehistoric Israel
Mousterian