Oldest Human Fossil in Western Europe Found in Spain

Popular Archaeology ^ | Sat, Aug 03, 2013 | Journal of Human Evolution

[SunkenCiv]

The find, a fossil tooth (molar) uncovered through excavations at the site of Barranco León in the Orce region of southeastern Spain, was dated to about 1.4 million years ago using several combined dating techniques, including Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) in combination with paleomagnetic and biochronological data...

Researchers identified the lithic assemblage as characteristic of Oldowan technology, the earliest known stone tool industry, first discovered at Olduvai Gorge in East Africa by Louis Leakey in the 1930s. The same industry was found at Dmanisi in the country of Georgia, where early human fossils dated to about 1.8 million years ago were discovered...

The animal remains consisted of both large mammals, such as hippopotamus and bison, as well as small mammals. The large mammal remains, they conclude, showed evidence of anthropic activity, the bones showing fractures, impact points, and flake scars, along with a scattering of bone flakes.

Thus, given the fossil tooth and its dating and the behavioral markers indicated by the stone tools and the associated mammal remains, Isidro-Moyano and colleagues conclude that the find "represents the oldest anatomical evidence of human presence in Western Europe. This finding, combined with the important lithic tool assemblage from the level D of Barranco León, confirms that Western Europe was colonized soon after the first expansion out of Africa, currently documented at the Dmanisi site."

[SunkenCiv]

A model of the face of an adult female Homo erectus, one of the first truly human ancestors of modern man, on display in the Hall of Human Origins in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Reconstruction by John Gurche; photographed by Tim Evanson. Wikimedia Commons

[SunkenCiv]

[COBOL2Java]

Unfortunately, we’ll never know if that was Helen Thomas’ first husband.

[Vermont Lt]

Guilty.

[fish hawk]

Bull crap. You really believe this junk? I’d like to sell you a bridge in NY state.

[SunkenCiv]

And I’d like it if there were no loudmouthed trolls on the Internet, but we don’t always get what we want.

[SunkenCiv]

Well, she is a little severe looking, but it was dark in the cave.

[onedoug]

Interesting find.

[taildragger]

And their still absentee voting more than once in Chicago.....

[James C. Bennett]

But, according to scientists, it was not likely that Y-chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve lived within the same generation, nor were they the only man and woman alive at the time or the only people to have present-day descendants. They simply had DNA portions that, because of their unchanging nature, made them more detectable and traceable, while the same sequences of others have become extinct because of natural selection and genetic "drift" (change in the frequency of a gene variant in a population due to random sampling).

Details of the studies have been published in the August 2, 2013 issue of the scientific journal Science, a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Cool!

[Revolting cat!]

[blueunicorn6]

Looks like Cher. Almost as old as her.

[hal ogen]

Was mclame in europe recently?????

[null and void]

Not if you could turn back time...

[MIchaelTArchangel]

Generalissimo Francisco Franco?

[Grimmy]

Any hints on what the sea levels were at the time the discoveries date to? And the weather type conditions of north Africa?

Seems to me that if north Africa was as is often portrayed in much of the ancient art on rock walls/caves and such in that area (wetter, grass plains, forest) and the sea levels were low enough...

Expansion into Europe via what’s now known as the Straight of Gibraltar might have been easier/shorter than the paths through what’s now the Mid East and into eastern Europe.

[Slyfox]

Hillary is in Spain?

[SunkenCiv]

Good reminder, it’s only an eight mile gap — I think we’ve got a topic somewhere in the FRchives...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1559199/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1885298/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1006058/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1892199/posts

http://www.ffzg.unizg.hr/arheo/ska/tekstovi/out_of_africa.pdf
http://www.pnas.org/content/102/24/8431.long
http://blog.23andme.com/ancestry/across-the-pillars-of-hercules-recent-study-confirms-prehistoric-connection-between-iberia-and-north-africa/
http://www.academia.edu/2476381/Sea-crossings_capacities_and_opportunities_during_prehistory_Survey_and_comparison_between_Homo_species_Hombert_J.M._and_Coupe_C._

[SunkenCiv]

:’D

[COBOL2Java]

Heh! And don’t forget, beer hadn’t yet been invented!