McLark
Thu, Mar-27-08, 17:16
(From John Hawk's Weblog http://johnhawks.net/weblog/)
"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."
Carbonell E and 29 others. 2008. The first hominin of
Europe. Nature
452:465-469
"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."
Carbonell E and 29 others. 2008. The first hominin of
Europe. Nature
452:465-469