A hominid from the lower Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible ancestor to Neandertals and modern humans

Science

Volumn 276, Issue 5317, 1997, Pages 1392-1395

  Bermudez De Castro J M ^a   Arsuaga, J L ^b   Carbonell, E ^c   Rosas, A ^a   Martinez I ^b   Mosquera, M ^c  

^a MUSEO NACIONAL DE CIENCIAS NATURALES   (Spain)

^b Facultad de Ciencias Geológicas   (Spain)

^c UNIVERSITAT ROVIRA I VIRGILI   (Spain)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; FACE; FOSSIL; HOMINID; HUMAN; MANDIBLE; PRIORITY JOURNAL; SKULL; SPAIN; TOOTH;

ADULT; ANIMALS; CHILD; DENTITION; FACIAL BONES; FOSSILS; HOMINIDAE; HUMANS; MANDIBLE; SKULL; SPAIN;

CRANIAL MORPHOLOGY; HOMINID; PLEISTOCENE;

SPAIN, CASTILLA Y LEON, BURGOS, SIERRA DE ATAPUERCA, GRAN DOLINA;

EID: 0030861531     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.276.5317.1392     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. M. H. Wolpoff, Paleo-Anthropology (Knopf, New York, 1980), chap 10.
2. G. P. Rightmire, J. Hum. Evol. 31, 21 (1996).
3. E. Carbonell et al., Science 269, 826 (1995).
4. J. M. Parés and A. Pérez-Gonzélez, ibid., p. 830.
5. Etymology. The name antecessor is the Latin word meaning explorer, pioneer, early settler. Assigning this name we emphasize that the TD6 hominids belong to the first population as yet known in the European continent. Types. The holotype is a fragment of right rnandibular body with M1, M2, and M3 (ATD6-5) and an associated set of teeth from the same individual that includes: right P3, P4, M1, and M2, left C, P3, P4, and M1; lower right C (crown fragment) P3, and P4, and left I2. Found by the Atapuerca research team in July 1994. The fossil remains of the holotype and paratypes found in 1994 are listed in table 1 of (3). Most of the remains of the holotype are shown in figure 3 of (3). The paratypes found in 1995 and 1996 are listed in Table 2. Holotype and paratypes are provisionally housed in the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid, CSIC, Spain. The final repository of the fossils is the Museo de Burgos. Locality. The Sierra de Atapuerca is situated about 0°10'E and 42°20'N. It is near the Arlanzón River and is 14 km east from the city of Burgos, northern Spain. All the fossil specimens attributed to the new species come from the Gran Dolina site (TD). The TD site is 18 m deep and fills the cavity catalogued as BU-IV-A-16 [M. A. Martin, S. Domingo, T. Antón, Kalte 2, 41 (1981)]. This cavity is located in the Trinchera del Ferrocarril, a dismantled railway trench opened in the southwestern side of the Sierra de Atapuerca. Horizon. All the types come from the so-called Aurora stratum, one of the Lower Pleistocene strata of the TD6 level. The top of the Aurora stratum is about 1 m below the Matuyama-Brunhes boundary (4).
6. According to B. A. Wood, Nature 355, 783 (1992).
7. J. H. Schwartz, and I. Tattersall, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 93, 10,852 (1996).
8. The reported Ceprano fossil from Italy, perhaps of early middle Pleistocene or even lower Pleistocene age, has been described as a late H. erectus [A. Ascenzi, I. Biddittu, P. F. Cassoli, A. G. Segre, E. Segre-Naldini, J. Hum. Evol. 31, 409 (1996)], which if confirmed (both the date and the taxonomic assignation) would represent the coexistence of two different hominid species in Europe.
9. C. B. Stringer, ibid. 12, 731 (1983); C. B. Stringer, in Ancestors: The Hard Evidence, E. Delson, Ed. (Liss, New York, 1985), pp. 289-295; C. B. Stringer, in Aux Origines des Homo sapiens, J. J. Hublin and A. M. Tillier, Eds. (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1991), pp. 49-74.
10. C. B. Stringer, ibid. 12, 731 (1983); C. B. Stringer, in Ancestors: The Hard Evidence, E. Delson, Ed. (Liss, New York, 1985), pp. 289-295; C. B. Stringer, in Aux Origines des Homo sapiens, J. J. Hublin and A. M. Tillier, Eds. (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1991), pp. 49-74.
11. C. B. Stringer, ibid. 12, 731 (1983); C. B. Stringer, in Ancestors: The Hard Evidence, E. Delson, Ed. (Liss, New York, 1985), pp. 289-295; C. B. Stringer, in Aux Origines des Homo sapiens, J. J. Hublin and A. M. Tillier, Eds. (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1991), pp. 49-74.
12. I. Tattersal, The Last Neanderthal (Macmillan, New York, 1986).
13. A. Rosas, J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, E. Aguirre, L'Anthropologie 95, 89 (1991); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martínez, A. Gracia, J. M. Carretero, E. Carbonell, Nature 362, 534 (1993); J. L. Arsuaga et al., Rev. Esp. Paleontol. no Extraord., 269 (1996); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martinez, A. Gracia, C. Lorenzo, J. Hum. Evol., in press.
14. A. Rosas, J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, E. Aguirre, L'Anthropologie 95, 89 (1991); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martínez, A. Gracia, J. M. Carretero, E. Carbonell, Nature 362, 534 (1993); J. L. Arsuaga et al., Rev. Esp. Paleontol. no Extraord., 269 (1996); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martinez, A. Gracia, C. Lorenzo, J. Hum. Evol., in press.
15. A. Rosas, J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, E. Aguirre, L'Anthropologie 95, 89 (1991); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martínez, A. Gracia, J. M. Carretero, E. Carbonell, Nature 362, 534 (1993); J. L. Arsuaga et al., Rev. Esp. Paleontol. no Extraord., 269 (1996); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martinez, A. Gracia, C. Lorenzo, J. Hum. Evol., in press.
16. A. Rosas, J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, E. Aguirre, L'Anthropologie 95, 89 (1991); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martínez, A. Gracia, J. M. Carretero, E. Carbonell, Nature 362, 534 (1993); J. L. Arsuaga et al., Rev. Esp. Paleontol. no Extraord., 269 (1996); J. L. Arsuaga, I. Martinez, A. Gracia, C. Lorenzo, J. Hum. Evol., in press.
17. A. Rosas and A. Buscalioni, Rev. Esp. Paleontol. 12, 23 (1997); A. Rosas, in Atapuerca y Evolución Humana, E. Aguirre, Ed. (Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid, in press); J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, M. E. Nicolás, J. Rodríguez, in ibid.
18. A. Rosas and A. Buscalioni, Rev. Esp. Paleontol. 12, 23 (1997); A. Rosas, in Atapuerca y Evolución Humana, E. Aguirre, Ed. (Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid, in press); J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, M. E. Nicolás, J. Rodríguez, in ibid.
19. A. Rosas and A. Buscalioni, Rev. Esp. Paleontol. 12, 23 (1997); A. Rosas, in Atapuerca y Evolución Humana, E. Aguirre, Ed. (Fundación Ramón Areces, Madrid, in press); J. M. Bermúdez de Castro, M. E. Nicolás, J. Rodríguez, in ibid.
20. P. Andrews, in The Early Evolution of Man with Special Emphasis on Southeast Asia and Africa, P. Andrews and J. L. Franzen Eds. (Courier Forsch.-Inst. Senckenberg: Frankfurt a. M., 1984), pp. 167-175;
21. C. B. Stringer, in ibid., pp. 131-143; B. A. Wood, in ibid., pp. 99-111.
22. C. B. Stringer, in ibid., pp. 131-143; B. A. Wood, in ibid., pp. 99-111.
23. 3). In spite of its thin frontal squama and delicate supraorbital torus, ATD6-15 was initially considered to be an adolescent because of its extensive frontal sinuses (3); however, because WT 15000 also shows a well-developed frontal sinus, ATD6-15 could well have belonged to an individual of similar age at death (around 11 years old), maybe the same individual as the ATD6-69 face.
24. The mylohyoid groove maintains with the alveolar margin a fairly low angle of about 34°. The only other fossil Homo mandible that approximates the form of the ATD6-5 mylohyoid groove is that of WT-15000. In the European middle Pleistocene hominids and Neandertals, the groove lies farther behind M3, and has an angle of 52° to 57° (mean of 12 is 54.9°).
25. A. Rosas, J. Hum. Evol. 28, 533 (1995).
26. This morphology probably derives from the presumed primitive condition 2R: M + D of the apehominid clade, which characterizes some early Pleistocene hominids from the Koobi Fora region [B. A. Wood, S. A. Abbott, H. Uytterschaut, J. Anat. 156, 107 (1988)].
27. The molars from TD6 are included in the category of hypotaurodontism [J. C. Shaw, J. Anat. 62, 476 (1928)]. The trend to the total fusion of the roots leads to the meso and hypertaurodontism which seems to be a derived condition of H. heidelbergensis and H. neanderthalensis.
28. The identification of the postcranial remains was made by J. M. Carretero, A. Gracia, and C. Lorenzo.
29. Age at death was estimated using values for predicting age from stages of permanent tooth formation presented in tables 9 and 10 of B. H. Smith [in Advances in Dental Anthropology, M. A. Kelley and C. S. Larsen Eds. (Wiley-Liss, New York, 1991), pp. 143-168].
30. We dedicate this paper to Emiliano Aguirre, pioneer of the systematic excavations and research in the Sierra de Atapuerca. The excavations in the Sierra de Atapuerca are supported by the Junta de Castilla y León, and the Research Project by the Ministerio de Educación y Cultura (DGICYT, project no. PB93-0066-C03, and Unidad Asociada Atapuerca). We thank the Atapuerca research team. Special thanks are given to those who have excavated the Aurora stratum from TD6. We are also grateful to I. Tattersall, J. Schwartz, J. Rodríguez, E. Nicolás, J. van der Made, and three anonymous reviewers for comments on the manuscript. The human fossils were restored by P. Gutiérrez del Solar and B. Gómez-Alonso.