TY - JOUR N2 - The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe several millennia after the occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Europe1. Local hybridization between the two groups occurred2, but not on all occasions3. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes during this transition, complicating our understanding and the association of behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups4. One such technocomplex for which the makers are unknown is the Lincombian?Ranisian?Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which has been described in northwestern and central Europe5?8. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains directly associated with an LRJ assemblage at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany). These human remains are among the earliest directly dated Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens remains in Eurasia. We show that early H. sapiens associated with the LRJ were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction of late Neanderthals in southwestern Europe. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes present in Europe during this transitional period. AV - public VL - 626 KW - Science & Technology KW - Multidisciplinary Sciences KW - Science & Technology - Other Topics KW - UPPER PALEOLITHIC TRANSITION KW - SPECIES IDENTIFICATION KW - KENT CAVERN KW - SEQUENCE KW - PALAEODIETARY KW - ENVIRONMENT KW - ALIGNMENT KW - CONTEXT KW - MICADAS KW - MAXILLA EP - 346 SP - 341 TI - Homo sapiens reached the higher latitudes of Europe by 45,000 years ago UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7 JF - Nature N1 - This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. PB - NATURE PORTFOLIO A1 - Mylopotamitaki, Dorothea A1 - Weiss, Marcel A1 - Fewlass, Helen A1 - Zavala, Elena Irene A1 - Rougier, Helene A1 - Suemer, Arev Pelin A1 - Hajdinjak, Mateja A1 - Smith, Geoff M A1 - Ruebens, Karen A1 - Sinet-Mathiot, Virginie A1 - Pederzani, Sarah A1 - Essel, Elena A1 - Harking, Florian S A1 - Xia, Huan A1 - Hansen, Jakob A1 - Kirchner, Andre A1 - Lauer, Tobias A1 - Stahlschmidt, Mareike A1 - Hein, Michael A1 - Talamo, Sahra A1 - Wacker, Lukas A1 - Meller, Harald A1 - Dietl, Holger A1 - Orschiedt, Joerg A1 - Olsen, Jesper V A1 - Zeberg, Hugo A1 - Pruefer, Kay A1 - Krause, Johannes A1 - Meyer, Matthias A1 - Welker, Frido A1 - Mcpherron, Shannon P A1 - Schueler, Tim A1 - Hublin, Jean-Jacques SN - 0028-0836 ID - discovery10191503 Y1 - 2024/02/08/ ER -