Question

Scenario 1 continued

Consider this scenario: While excavating in a cave in Spain, you discover an entire group of fossilized individuals dating to about 49,000 years ago. There are cut marks on the bones of the archaic humans that match in location to the cut marks on the bones of deer, aurochs, and wild boars. It is a mixed group of males and females, with some small children as well.

Their skeletons show these characteristics:

• Their skulls are larger than average Homo sapiens sapiens, and they have a pronounced occipital bun, heavy brown ridges, cheekbones that slope sharply back from their enormous nasal aperture (nose hole). They have a sloping chin with no bump. Their skulls show they were bipedal.
• Their bodies were very short and heavy, with massive muscle attachments and thick bone.
• The DNA was recovered, and the males all had the same mitochondrial DNA, while the females had different mitochondrial DNA.
• Mousterian stone tools were found in the cave, and were apparently used to make the cut marks. One of them miraculously had DNA still on it from a blood stain on the grip segment, and while the nuclear DNA on it didn’t match any of the skeletons that were found, the mitochondrial DNA didmatch up with one of the females.

What is the most likely explanation for the DNA evidence found in the assemblage from the cave?

A)The males were all closely related, and the females moved into their group. One of the females relatives was one of their killers, and they were cannibalized.

B) The women were all closely related, and the males moved into their group. The groups was likely killed by accident when it turned out there was a Cave Bear in their cave.

C)These people all came from different groups and were hiding in this cave for protection against anatomically modern humans as they encroached on the territory.

D)The women were all closely related, and the males moved into their group. One of the males’ relatives was one of their killers, and they were cannibalized.

Answer 1

Neanderthal have a with heavy brows and protruding noses. They also had a large skulls and robust skeletal features. They were found in Ice Age Europe along with other ancestral species of human. The fossils found in the cave can be of Neanderthal or other ancestors.

Since many bones are found in the cave pit, it is possible that it was a mortuary of some kind. The wild animals might have been trapped inside the pit if they might have been disposed there after hunting or killing them for self defence.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed through the egg of the mother and hence only mother can directly pass the mt DNA to her progeny. Hence, the males belonged to same common ancestors and females had different mt DNA they had different ancestors.

The tool that was used to make the cuts had the blood of female that was related to one of the other females. Hence, males were related to each other and female was  related to one other female.

Option A is the most appropriate option. The males were closely related according to their mt DNA and a ground of females move into group and killed them all.
this was pretty common during that time as different species of human were competing with each other and cannibalism was also common.

Option B doesn't make much sense as why all so many people are killed accidentally to kill a bear.

option C is wrong because males did not came from different groups.

option D is wrong because all women were not closely related.