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: A paleomagnetic investigation at the Gran Dolina site excavation (Atapuerca, Spain) shows that the sediments containing the recently discovered human occupation were deposited more than 780,000 years ago, near the time of the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary. Forty-one oriented samples were obtained from 22 sites along an 18-meter section of the Gran Dolina karst filling. The lower 16 sites displayed reversed-polarity magnetizations whereas the upper six sites were normal. The reversal spans the hominid finds at stratigraphic level TD6 (the Aurora stratum), and these hominid fossils are therefore the oldest in southern Europe.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Pares, J M -- Perez-Gonzalez, A -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 1995 Aug 11;269(5225):830-2.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Institut de Ciencias de la Terra Juame Almera, Consejo de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7638599" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉