Wednesday, July 31, 2019

Walking the Camino

Arriving in the main square, Santiago

Our Pilgrimage
Pilgrim, who calls you?
What secret power draws you? (Anon.)

Santiago was the destination of one of the great pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. Pilgrims set out from all over Europe and converged as they crossed the Pyrenees and entered Spain. Then the Way of St James led to the great cities of Burgos and Leon and on to the shrine in the Field of the Star (Campus Stellae – Compostela) where the bones of St James were believed to lie and now a magnificent cathedral stands.
In early July, together with my son John, we walked as a group of 24 pilgrims from Sarria to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, a distance 70 miles. King Alfonso IX died at Sarria in 1230 while on pilgrimage to the great shrine and his remains lie in the Cathedral of St James the Great. Our walk took us through beautiful undulating Spanish countryside with shady oaks, quiet country roads, sleepy villages with small stone churches and through forest track in the eucalyptus woods.
The Mount of Joy where medieval pilgrims first saw
the spires of Santiago Cathedral
We visited the Romanesque fortress-church of San Nicolas (13 c) in Portomarin. In 1962 the valley was flooded by the creation of the Belesar reservoir. The entire town was moved to higher ground on the west bank. The stones of the façade of the Church of San Pedro (1182) and those of the -church of San Nicolas were numbered to aid reconstruction when the town was moved. At Lavacolla early pilgrims washed themselves in the river before their arrival in Santiago. At the Mount of Joy (Monte Del Gozo), medieval pilgrims first saw the spires of Santiago Cathedral.
Stone carving of Our Lady
Santiago
One of the few carved stone images depicting Our Lady when she was about six months pregnant can be seen decorating an old building in Santiago Old Town. She is shown with her left hand touching her stomach.
In the Middle Ages, Santiago, together with Rome and Jerusalem, were regarded as ‘great pilgrimages’. Santiago was, and still is, one of the largest centres of pilgrimage in the Christian world. The cathedral is the reliquary of the Apostle St James. The first church over the tomb of the Apostle was built by King Alfonso II in around 830-840.
The Apostle James
The Apostle James was one of Jesus’ closest disciples and was present at some significant events in the Gospels including: The Healing of Jairus’ Daughter (Mark 5:21-24a and 35-43); The Transfiguration (Luke 9: 23-36) and in the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14: 32-42). He was killed by King Herod. The supposed tomb of St James discovered in 813 led to increase in the number of pilgrims to Santiago and the building of the original church. In 899 a new cathedral was consecrated and in 1075 the second cathedral was begun. The third cathedral was started in 1100. In 1181 a Papal Bull confirmed Santiago’s status as a major pilgrimage site.
After 1300 the number of pilgrims visiting Santiago declined due to the Black Death, wars and schism. In 1879 excavations at the cathedral revealed the reburial site and relics of the Apostle. In 1884 the relics were authenticated by Pope Leo XIII and replaced under the high altar. In 1948 pilgrimage and Holy Year were publicised outside Spain and the number of pilgrims grew. Pope John Paul II visited Santiago in 1982 and again in 1989. Pope Benedict XVI’s official visit to Spain in 2010 began at the cathedral.
Fording a stream in Galicia

My lasting image of the Camino is walking along narrow country lanes, through small stone-walled fields, with a profusion of foxgloves on either side all seeming to point towards Santiago de Compostela. When the Lord scattered those seeds, did He think of a pilgrim like me, I wondered? I would like to think that he did!

Monday, July 22, 2019

210,000-Year-Old Homo sapiens Skull Oldest Outside Africa

A 210,000-year-old human skull found in Greece
Source: Esben 468635/Adobe stock

The website https://www.ancient-origins.net/ reports that a 210,000-year-old human skull found in Greece in the 1970s could provide new evidence that our species left Africa much earlier than previously thought. If the claim is verified, the discovery will rewrite a key chapter of the human story, with the skull becoming the oldest known Homo sapiens fossil in Europe by more than 90,000 years.
Early Expansion not Maintained
The first fossil evidence for any modern humans outside Africa comes from the Middle East, from the archaeological sites of Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel, dating to around 120,000 years ago. However, this early expansion of modern humans was not maintained. A change to a colder climate may have driven those pioneers back into Africa. The expansion of our own species out of Africa that eventually led to the colonisation of the globe would start later – after 100,000 years ago.
A re-evaluation of early human remains and artefacts from Morocco has pushed back the advent of Homo sapiens by 100,000 years. Archaeologists and palaeontologists now think that the oldest of the fossils comes from 300,000 to 350,000 years ago. Skulls, teeth, and long bones of at least five Homo sapiens, along with stone tools and animal bones, have been found at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco since 2004.
Stone Tools
Although stone tools were found all over Africa by 300,000 years ago, human fossils were thought to be no older than 195,000 years old. One possibility was that the stone tools had been made by some hominid (any member of the group consisting of all modern and extinct humans and great apes - including gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans - and all their immediate ancestors) other than Homo sapiens. Jebel Irhoud is the oldest and richest African Middle Stone Age hominin site that documents early stages of the Homo sapiens.
Hominins, which may have originated in Africa up to 6 million years ago, include all the species that emerged after the Homo genus, split from that of chimpanzees. Humans and chimpanzees are very closely related and separated about 7.4 million years ago.  There is only a 1% difference between the chimpanzee genome and our own suggesting that we have a common ancestor.
Apidima 2 and its reconstruction.
(c) Katerina Harvati, Eberhard Karls: University of Tubinggen

Apidima Cave
The human skull from Greece was one of two cranial fossils found in Apidima Cave, on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnese in Greece. Both were initially identified as Neanderthals. The discovery of these skulls provides evidence of an earlier migration of people from Africa that left no trace in the DNA of people alive today. One skull was very distorted and the other incomplete. The more complete skull appears to be a Neanderthal. But the other shows clear characteristics, such as a rounded back to the skull, diagnostic of modern humans.
A multinational team from the University of Tubinggen in Germany, led by Katerina Harvati, reconstructed the specimens digitally and dated them by measuring their radioactive decay and confirmed that the skull known as Apidima 2 was an early Neanderthal dating from around 170,000 years ago. Scientists also digitally recreated the skull known as Apidima 1 and found that it was more likely a modern human (Homo sapiens), dating it to 210,000 years ago.

Human fossils from Daoxian and Zhirendong
Palaeontologists have discovered modern human fossils from Daoxian and Zhirendong in China dating to between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago. DNA studies indicate that there was early interbreeding between African humans and Neanderthals.
The new evidence from Apidima further extends our understanding of modern human dispersal and interaction with other hominin species. Human evolution has been thought of in terms of new species developing and replacing older simpler ones. Modern humans were thought to have left Africa and moved across the world from around 70,000 years ago replacing the Neanderthals in Europe about 40,000 years ago.  New fossil discoveries, improvements in their dating and the advent of genetic evidence, has led to a reappraisal of the distribution of modern humans.
Adult Male Cranium 'H.naledi'
from Lesed 1 Chamber, Naledi, South Africa

Neanderthals, Homo naledi and Denisovans
Evidence from modern day Israel, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, suggest the first wave of modern humans out of Africa were replaced by Neanderthals, before the final, more successful human migration that followed. In southern Africa, modern humans were alive at the same time as a much smaller and seemingly more primitive species called Homo naledi . Genetic evidence from Siberia and Tibet has identified a new hominin species – the Denisovans – that shared a history of interbreeding and interaction with Neanderthals. DNA analysis of our own genomes shows that the Neanderthals bred with our own species.
People living today who are of European, Eurasian, and Asian descent have well-identified Neanderthal-derived segments in their genome. Present-day Africans, however, do not have detectable traces of Neanderthal DNA in their genomes. This shows that whatever sexual contact occurred between modern humans and Neanderthals happened among humans who left the African continent. 
People living outside Africa today trace their ancestry to a migration that left the continent around 60,000 years ago. As modern humans moved across Europe and Asia, they largely replaced other species they met, such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Cranial features of Modern Man and Neanderthal compared

If at least some early modern humans left Africa more than 210,000 years ago, they may have settled in the Levant (Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Turkey, Israel and Jordan) before expanding west into Europe, which was already home to Neanderthals. Scientists believe that any early human pioneers who did reach Europe died out there, before the Neanderthals themselves were replaced by an influx of Homo sapiens about 40,000 years ago.
Conclusion
A 210,000-year-old human skull found in Greece in the 1970s could provide new evidence that our species left Africa much earlier than previously thought, becoming the oldest known Homo sapiens fossil in Europe by more than 90,000 years. Some experts, however, question whether the skull really belonged to a modern human. Concerns have also been expressed about the dating procedure used. For now, at least, the jury is still out on this recent ‘Earth breaking’ discovery!
For further information see:
https://www.ancient-origins.net/