ALBERT

Description: The earliest hominin occupation of Europe is one of the most debated topics in palaeoanthropology. However, the purportedly oldest of the Early Pleistocene sites in Eurasia lack precise age control and contain stone tools rather than human fossil remains. Here we report the discovery of a human mandible associated with an assemblage of Mode 1 lithic tools and faunal remains bearing traces of hominin processing, in stratigraphic level TE9 at the site of the Sima del Elefante, Atapuerca, Spain. Level TE9 has been dated to the Early Pleistocene (approximately 1.2-1.1 Myr), based on a combination of palaeomagnetism, cosmogenic nuclides and biostratigraphy. The Sima del Elefante site thus emerges as the oldest, most accurately dated record of human occupation in Europe, to our knowledge. The study of the human mandible suggests that the first settlement of Western Europe could be related to an early demographic expansion out of Africa. The new evidence, with previous findings in other Atapuerca sites (level TD6 from Gran Dolina), also suggests that a speciation event occurred in this extreme area of the Eurasian continent during the Early Pleistocene, initiating the hominin lineage represented by the TE9 and TD6 hominins.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Carbonell, Eudald -- Bermudez de Castro, Jose M -- Pares, Josep M -- Perez-Gonzalez, Alfredo -- Cuenca-Bescos, Gloria -- Olle, Andreu -- Mosquera, Marina -- Huguet, Rosa -- van der Made, Jan -- Rosas, Antonio -- Sala, Robert -- Vallverdu, Josep -- Garcia, Nuria -- Granger, Darryl E -- Martinon-Torres, Maria -- Rodriguez, Xose P -- Stock, Greg M -- Verges, Josep M -- Allue, Ethel -- Burjachs, Francesc -- Caceres, Isabel -- Canals, Antoni -- Benito, Alfonso -- Diez, Carlos -- Lozano, Marina -- Mateos, Ana -- Navazo, Marta -- Rodriguez, Jesus -- Rosell, Jordi -- Arsuaga, Juan L -- England -- Nature. 2008 Mar 27;452(7186):465-9. doi: 10.1038/nature06815.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Area de Prehistoria, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Placa Imperial Tarraco 1, 43005 Tarragona, Spain. eudald.carbonell@urv.cat〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18368116" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Seventeen Middle Pleistocene crania from the Sima de los Huesos site (Atapuerca, Spain) are analyzed, including seven new specimens. This sample makes it possible to thoroughly characterize a Middle Pleistocene hominin paleodeme and to address hypotheses about the origin and evolution of the Neandertals. Using a variety of techniques, the hominin-bearing layer could be reassigned to a period around 430,000 years ago. The sample shows a consistent morphological pattern with derived Neandertal features present in the face and anterior vault, many of which are related to the masticatory apparatus. This suggests that facial modification was the first step in the evolution of the Neandertal lineage, pointing to a mosaic pattern of evolution, with different anatomical and functional modules evolving at different rates.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Arsuaga, J L -- Martinez, I -- Arnold, L J -- Aranburu, A -- Gracia-Tellez, A -- Sharp, W D -- Quam, R M -- Falgueres, C -- Pantoja-Perez, A -- Bischoff, J -- Poza-Rey, E -- Pares, J M -- Carretero, J M -- Demuro, M -- Lorenzo, C -- Sala, N -- Martinon-Torres, M -- Garcia, N -- Alcazar de Velasco, A -- Cuenca-Bescos, G -- Gomez-Olivencia, A -- Moreno, D -- Pablos, A -- Shen, C-C -- Rodriguez, L -- Ortega, A I -- Garcia, R -- Bonmati, A -- Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Carbonell, E -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2014 Jun 20;344(6190):1358-63. doi: 10.1126/science.1253958.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. jlarsuaga@isciii.es. ; Area de Paleontologia, Departamento de Geologia, Geografia y Medio Ambiente, Universidad de Alcala, Spain.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, the Environment Institute, and the Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), University of Adelaide, Australia. ; Departamento Mineralogia y Petrologia, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologia, Universidad del Pais Vasco, Spain. ; Berkeley Geochronology Center, Berkeley, CA, USA. ; Department of Anthropology, Binghamton University (State University of New York), Binghamton, NY, USA. Division of Anthropology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. ; U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA,USA. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. ; Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. Institute for Photonics and Advanced Sensing (IPAS), School of Chemistry and Physics, University of Adelaide, Australia. ; Area de Prehistoria, Departamento d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain. Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain.Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. ; Paleontologia, Aragosaurus-IUCA and Facultad Ciencias, Universidad de Zaragoza, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. PAVE Research Group, Division of Biological Anthropology, Cambridge, UK. ; Departement de Prehistoire, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris, France. Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; Centro Mixto UCM-ISCIII de Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Madrid, Spain. Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana Burgos, Spain. Laboratorio de Evolucion Humana, Departamento de Ciencias Historicas y Geografia, Universidad de Burgos, Spain. ; High-Precision Mass Spectrometry and Environment Change Laboratory (HISPEC), Department of Geosciences, National Taiwan University, Taiwan ROC. ; Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, Tarragona, Spain. Area de Prehistoria, Departamento d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV), Tarragona, Spain. Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Beijing (IVPP), China.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24948730" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: It has been suggested that European Middle Pleistocene humans, Neandertals, and prehistoric modern humans had a greater sexual dimorphism than modern humans. Analysis of body size variation and cranial capacity variation in the large sample from the Sima de los Huesos site in Spain showed instead that the sexual dimorphism is comparable in Middle Pleistocene and modern populations.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Arsuaga, J L -- Carretero, J M -- Lorenzo, C -- Gracia, A -- Martinez, I -- Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Carbonell, E -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1997 Aug 22;277(5329):1086-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Departamento de Paleontologia, Instituto de Geologia Economica, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Ciudad Universitaria 28040 Madrid, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9262474" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Human fossil remains recovered from the TD6 level (Aurora stratum) of the lower Pleistocene cave site of Gran Dolina, Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain, exhibit a unique combination of cranial, mandibular, and dental traits and are suggested as a new species of Homo-H. antecessor sp. nov. The fully modern midfacial morphology of the fossils antedates other evidence of this feature by about 650, 000 years. The midfacial and subnasal morphology of modern humans may be a retention of a juvenile pattern that was not yet present in H. ergaster. Homo antecessor may represent the last common ancestor for Neandertals and modern humans.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Arsuaga, J L -- Carbonell, E -- Rosas, A -- Martinez, I -- Mosquera, M -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1997 May 30;276(5317):1392-5.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Departamento de Paleobiologia, J. Gutierrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9162001" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Excavations of a complex of caves in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain have unearthed hominin fossils that range in age from the early Pleistocene to the Holocene. One of these sites, the 'Sima de los Huesos' ('pit of bones'), has yielded the world's largest assemblage of Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils, consisting of at least 28 individuals dated to over 300,000 years ago. The skeletal remains share a number of morphological features with fossils classified as Homo heidelbergensis and also display distinct Neanderthal-derived traits. Here we determine an almost complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos and show that it is closely related to the lineage leading to mitochondrial genomes of Denisovans, an eastern Eurasian sister group to Neanderthals. Our results pave the way for DNA research on hominins from the Middle Pleistocene.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Meyer, Matthias -- Fu, Qiaomei -- Aximu-Petri, Ayinuer -- Glocke, Isabelle -- Nickel, Birgit -- Arsuaga, Juan-Luis -- Martinez, Ignacio -- Gracia, Ana -- de Castro, Jose Maria Bermudez -- Carbonell, Eudald -- Paabo, Svante -- England -- Nature. 2014 Jan 16;505(7483):403-6. doi: 10.1038/nature12788. Epub 2013 Dec 4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; 1] Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany [2] Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044, China. ; 1] Centro de Investigacion Sobre la Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain [2] Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain. ; 1] Centro de Investigacion Sobre la Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain [2] Area de Paleontologia, Depto. de Geografia y Geologia, Universidad de Alcala, Alcala de Henares, 28871 Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana, Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca, 09002 Burgos, Spain. ; 1] Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, C/Marcel.li Domingo s/n (Edifici W3), Campus Sescelades, 43007 Tarragona, Spain [2] Area de Prehistoria, Dept. d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Univ. Rovira i Virgili, Fac. de Lletres, Av. Catalunya, 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24305051" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: Human remains dating to more than 780,000 years ago are associated with a rich faunal and lithic assemblage in the Pleistocene cave site of Gran Dolina (TD), Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain. The micromammal species represent the late Biharian (Mimomys savini zone), and the lithic objects represent pre-Acheulean technology (Mode 1) and comes from the TD6 level below the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary. The Gran Dolina hominid fossils cannot be comfortably accommodated in any of the defined Homo species. They could be considered a primitive form of Homo heidelbergensis, but a new species might be named in the future if the sample is enlarged. The new human fossil evidence demonstrates that Western Europe was settled at least since the late early Pleistocene.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Carbonell, E -- Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Arsuaga, J L -- Diez, J C -- Rosas, A -- Cuenca-Bescos, G -- Sala, R -- Mosquera, M -- Rodriguez, X P -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1995 Aug 11;269(5225):826-30.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Laboratori d'Arqueologia, Universitat Rovira i Virgii, Imperial Tarraco, Tarragona, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7638598" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: 〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Fernandez-Jalvo, Y -- Diez, J C -- Bermudez de Castro, J M -- Carbonell, E -- Arsuaga, J L -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1996 Jan 19;271(5247):277-8.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8553055" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉

Description: A unique assemblage of 28 hominin individuals, found in Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain, has recently been dated to approximately 430,000 years ago. An interesting question is how these Middle Pleistocene hominins were related to those who lived in the Late Pleistocene epoch, in particular to Neanderthals in western Eurasia and to Denisovans, a sister group of Neanderthals so far known only from southern Siberia. While the Sima de los Huesos hominins share some derived morphological features with Neanderthals, the mitochondrial genome retrieved from one individual from Sima de los Huesos is more closely related to the mitochondrial DNA of Denisovans than to that of Neanderthals. However, since the mitochondrial DNA does not reveal the full picture of relationships among populations, we have investigated DNA preservation in several individuals found at Sima de los Huesos. Here we recover nuclear DNA sequences from two specimens, which show that the Sima de los Huesos hominins were related to Neanderthals rather than to Denisovans, indicating that the population divergence between Neanderthals and Denisovans predates 430,000 years ago. A mitochondrial DNA recovered from one of the specimens shares the previously described relationship to Denisovan mitochondrial DNAs, suggesting, among other possibilities, that the mitochondrial DNA gene pool of Neanderthals turned over later in their history.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Meyer, Matthias -- Arsuaga, Juan-Luis -- de Filippo, Cesare -- Nagel, Sarah -- Aximu-Petri, Ayinuer -- Nickel, Birgit -- Martinez, Ignacio -- Gracia, Ana -- Bermudez de Castro, Jose Maria -- Carbonell, Eudald -- Viola, Bence -- Kelso, Janet -- Prufer, Kay -- Paabo, Svante -- England -- Nature. 2016 Mar 24;531(7595):504-7. doi: 10.1038/nature17405. Epub 2016 Mar 14.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, Germany. ; Centro de Investigacion Sobre la Evolucion y Comportamiento Humanos, Universidad Complutense de Madrid-Instituto de Salud Carlos III, 28029 Madrid, Spain. ; Departamento de Paleontologia, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain. ; Area de Paleontologia, Departamento de Geografia y Geologia, Universidad de Alcala, Alcala de Henares, 28871 Madrid, Spain. ; Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana, Paseo Sierra de Atapuerca, 09002 Burgos, Spain. ; Institut Catala de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolucio Social, C/Marcel.li Domingo s/n (Edifici W3), Campus Sescelades, 43007 Tarragona, Spain. ; Area de Prehistoria, Departament d'Historia i Historia de l'Art, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Facultat de Lletres, Avinguda de Catalunya, 35, 43002 Tarragona, Spain. ; Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, 19 Russell Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2S2, Canada.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26976447" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉