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.

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The joint evaluated fission and fusion nuclear data library 3.3 is described. New evaluations for neutroninduced interactions with the major actinides 235 U, 238 U and 239 Pu, on 241 Am and 23 Na, 59 Ni, Cr, Cu, Zr, Cd, Hf, W, Au, Pb and Bi are presented. It includes new fission yields, prompt fission neutron spectra and average number of neutrons per fission. In addition, new data for radioactive decay, thermal neutron scattering, gamma-ray emission, neutron activation, delayed neutrons and displacement damage are presented. JEFF-3.3 was complemented by files from the TENDL project. The libraries for photon, proton, deuteron, triton, helion and alpha-particle induced reactions are from TENDL-2017. The demands for uncertainty quantification in modeling led to many new covariance data for the evaluations. A comparison between results from model calculations using the JEFF-3.3 library and those from benchmark experiments for criticality, delayed neutron yields, shielding and decay heat, reveals that JEFF-3.3 performes very well for a wide range of nuclear technology applications, in particular nuclear energy.

Systematic excavations, begun in 1987, at the Valdegoba cave site in northern Spain have yielded the remains of five individuals associated with a Middle Paleolithic stone tool technology and Pleistocene fauna. A fragmentary mandible of an adolescent (VB1), preserving nearly a full set of teeth, exhibits a symphyseal tubercle and slight incurvatio mandibulae anterior on the external symphysis. Both the superior and inferior transverse tori are present on the internal aspect. A second individual (VB2) is represented by a set of ten deciduous teeth consistent with an age at death of 6-9 months. A proximal manual phalanx (VB3) displays a relatively broad head, a characteristic which is found in both Neandertals, as well as European Middle Pleistocene hominids. VB4 is a fourth metatarsal that lacks the distal epiphysis, indicating it comes from an adolescent individual, and has a relatively high robusticity index. Finally, VB5 is a fifth metatarsal of an adult. The VB1 mandible shows a combination of archaic characteristics as well as more specific Neandertal morphological traits. The VB2 deciduous teeth are very small, and both the metrics and morphology seem more consistent with a modern human classification. The postcranial elements are undiagnostic, U-Th dating has provided an age of >350 ka for the base of the sequence and a date of <73.2+/-5 ka for level 7, near the top. Faunal analysis and radiometric dates from other nearby Mousterian sites suggests that the Valdegoba site is correlative with oxygen isotope stages 3-6 on the Iberian peninsula, and an Upper Pleistocene age for the Valdegoba hominids seems most reasonable.

RESUMENLas excavaciones arqueológicas iniciadas en 1999 en la cueva de El Mirador de la sierra de Atapuerca han permitido documentar hasta el momento una sucesión estratigráfica holocena de unos 2,5 m de potencia, formada por niveles del Neolítico y de la Edad del Bronce. Los datos preliminares sobre las ocupaciones de la Edad del Bronce señalan el uso de la cueva como redil, zona de habitat y espacio sepulcral. Durante su uso como redil se llevó a cabo la quema periódica del estiércol depositado en el interior del corral. Es la primera vez que dicha práctica se documenta en la Meseta y, en el ámbito europeo, en contexto geográfico continental. El uso como cueva sepulcral viene seña-