What is the secret of the Pit of Bones?

The First Post ^ | November 21, 2007 | Sean Thomas

[SunkenCiv]

Atapuerca gives us incontrovertible evidence that there was human life, already in north Spain, in 1.2m years BC. Is it possible that the "out of Africa" theory is wrong - that mankind evolved separately in Europe? ...Atapuerca's rich limestone silt hides still another secret, even more astonishing. As archaeologist Susana Callizo explains... "The question you have to ask is, how did those skeletons get down there? The Pit of Bones is inaccessible. Even today it is difficult to approach - the archaeologists have to abseil down a narrow chasm, then crawl through passages, before they can start digging. Some people think the bodies might have been washed down there, by rainstorms or wind, but most believe that this is very unlikely, given the remote nature of the cavern... It is likely that the bodies were deliberately buried here. Interred by their relatives maybe." ...So far, the earliest firm evidence for human religious ritual comes from 70,000-year-old burials, of Neanderthal skeletons adorned with red powder and flower petals... But now we have the Pit of Bones, and all those skeletons, purposefully moved, it seems, into a highly inaccessible place. Skeletons of hunters and young mothers: people you might want to mourn, and to bury... Quite recently, excavators in the Pit found a hand axe, exquisitely carved from rose quartz. It was placed deliberately with the skeletons, like an offering: a precious ritual object to be ferried into the next world.

[gleeaikin]

It is my understanding that the Mediterranean Basin was composed of two large lakes in times past. I also have read that the ocean has been as much as 400 feet lower during various ice ages. If during one of the previous ice age mixima in the past million years there was mostly dry land with only a relatively small passage of water from ocean to Mediterranean I am sure it would have been possible for hominids to swim or raft across. Furthermore, how do we know that the current channel depth was not caused by erosion from rising ocean levels rushing in to fill the entire M basin? Perhaps it was much less deep in times past.

[SunkenCiv]

Before the “dam” broke, it was all dry land in the area between Africa and Spain, but that was prior to about 5.5 million years ago, when (presumably) there would have been no one around to walk across the landscape or live down there. The sealevels fell during glaciations, but the decline was greater as one got closer to the poles. Thus, the Bering Strait is very much deeper than the straits, but in recent years research has shown that the seabed used to be dry land, and very similar to current landscapes on either side of the water. :’)

Humans didn’t need the water to get shallow and narrow to cross on vessels, they had it goin’ on even 800K years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

Mammoth Herds ‘Roamed Fertile Bering Strait In Ice Age’
Ananova | 6-5-2003
Posted on 06/04/2003 6:39:25 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/923247/posts

A New View of the Bering Land Bridge
Article #1304
by Ned Rozell
September 26, 1996
Alaska Science Forum
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF13/1304.html

[SunkenCiv]

Whoops, “an average depth of 30–50 m (100–165 ft)”, but the point I was trying to make was, the seabed was exposed where the waters are now much deeper than this.

[SunkenCiv]

In the mountains of northern Spain, archaeologists discovered a pit of bones 100ft underground. They soon realised they had a mystery on their hands when DNA analysis showed the bones didn't belong to modern humans nor Neanderthals - they were something new altogether and it looked like they had been murdered.

Video and animation: Dominika Ozynska and Adrian Hartrick

Commissioned by: Florence Craig

Have archaeologists found the missing link?
January 25, 2021 | BBC Reel

This topic was posted 11/26/2007, just an update to the message.

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KEYWORDS: atapuerca; godsgravesglyphs; neandertal; neanderthal

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[SunkenCiv]

• A human fossil species in western Europe could be close to a million years old [06/07/2018]
• Iberia's Neolithic Farmers Linked to Modern-Day Basques [09/08/2015]
• Study reveals human body has gone through four stages of evolution [09/04/2015]
• Archaeologists Continue Searching for "First Humans" in Europe at Atapuerca Site in Spain [07/27/2013]
• Scientists are accused of distorting theory of human evolution by misdating bones [06/13/2012]
• 500,000 year old cranium found at Atapuerca, Burgos [08/01/2010]
• The first Europeans were cannibals, say Spanish archaeologists [06/26/2009]

[SunkenCiv]

Well, a few listed up above were not in the keyword, or vice versa. Whoops.

• A human fossil species in western Europe could be close to a million years old [06/07/2018]
• Iberia's Neolithic Farmers Linked to Modern-Day Basques [09/08/2015]
• Study reveals human body has gone through four stages of evolution [09/04/2015]
• Archaeologists Continue Searching for "First Humans" in Europe at Atapuerca Site in Spain [07/27/2013]
• Scientists are accused of distorting theory of human evolution by misdating bones [06/13/2012]
• 500,000 year old cranium found at Atapuerca, Burgos [08/01/2010]
• The first Europeans were cannibals, say Spanish archaeologists [06/26/2009]
• Fragments of another skull unearthed at the Atapuerca site [10/16/2007]
• 'First west Europe tooth' (million-year-old human tooth) found in Spain [06/30/2007]
• Mandible, Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain, Homo Antecessor, 800K years old [06/24/2005]
• Disaster May Have Killed Ancients [05/19/2004]
• 21st Century New York Meets Neanderthal Male [01/20/2003]
• A Rebuilt Neanderthal [12/31/2002]
• Sabre-tooths and Hominids [11/22/2002]