Zlatý kůň woman



The Zlatý kůň woman is the fossil of an ancient woman, an Early European modern human, dated to circa 43,000 BP. 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. 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.

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.

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. The Zlatý kůň woman also has contributed genetically neither to later Europeans nor to Asians.

Among the earliest modern humans that have been directly dated to this period are:
 * 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.