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Vindija is a cave located in northern Croatia, known for being the site of one of the best preserved remains of Neanderthals fossils in the world, found in 1974. It is estimated that Neanderthals lived there about 45,000-32,000 years ago. One of these Neanderthals was selected as primary source of DNA for the Neanderthal genome project. Vindija Cave is a stratified paleontological and archaeological site in Croatia, which has several occupations associated with both Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans (AMH). ==Stratigraphy== The cave is located roughly west of the city of Varaždin and 10 km north of Ivanec, in the municipality of Donja Voća. Vindija includes a total of 13 levels dated between 150,000 years ago and the present, spanning the upper part of the Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic periods. Several of the levels are without hominin remains, or have been disturbed primarily through cryoturbations ice wedging, there are some stratigraphically separated hominin levels at Vindija Cave associated with humans and Neanderthals. The earliest recognized hominid occupations date to ca. 45,000 bp, deposits at Vindija include strata that comprise a huge number of animal bones, including tens of thousands of specimens, 90% of which are cave bears, over a period of more than 150,000 years. This record of animals in the region has been used to establish data about the climate and habitat of northwest Croatia during that period. The site was first excavated in the first half of the 20th century, and more extensively excavated between 1974 and 1986 by Mirko Malez of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. There are numerous archaeological and faunal remains with over 100 hominin discoveries that have been found at Vindija Cave. * Specimens in Level G3 (38,000-45,000 years bp), the lowest hominin-bearing level, are Neanderthals and are associated with exclusively Mousterian artifacts. * Specimens in Level G1 (32,000-34,000 years bp) represent the most recent Neanderthals at the site and are associated with both Mousterian and Upper Paleolithic stone tools. * Hominins in Level F (31,000-28,000 years bp) are associated with Aurignacian and according to researchers look a little like both AMH and Neanderthal. * Hominins in Level D (less than 18,500 years bp, the uppermost hominid-bearing strata in the cave, are associated with Gravettian culture artifacts, and represent only anatomically modern humans. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Vindija Cave」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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