The Early and Middle Pleistocene technological record from Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain)

Ollé, Andreu; Mosquera, Marina; Rodrı́guez, Xosé Pedro; Hermida, Arturo de Lombera; García-Antón, María Dolores; García-Medrano, Paula; Peña, Luna; Menéndez, Leticia; Ruíz, Marta Navazo; Terradillos, Marcos; Bargalló, Amèlia; Márquez, Belén; Sala, Robert; Carbonell, Eudald

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2011.11.009

Cited by 201 publications

(131 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…A su vez, las fechas obtenidas por el mismo método por luminiscencia pIR-IR y quartz TT-OSL en la Trinchera Galería de Atapuerca, donde se conservan conjuntos achelenses (Ollé et al, 2013) son 313±14 ka para la base de la Unidad GIIa y c. 240 ka para la Unidad GIIb-GIV (Demuro et al, 2014), siendo cronologías similares a las de los depósitos de Pinedo y Cien Fanegas.…”

Section: Interpretaciónunclassified

Geocronología de los yacimientos achelenses de Pinedo y Cien Fanegas (Valle del Tajo) e implicaciones en la evolución fluvial en el entorno de Toledo (España)

López-Recio¹,

Silva²,

Roquero³

et al. 2015

Estud. geol.

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Section: Interpretaciónunclassified

Geocronología de los yacimientos achelenses de Pinedo y Cien Fanegas (Valle del Tajo) e implicaciones en la evolución fluvial en el entorno de Toledo (España)

López-Recio¹,

Silva²,

Roquero³

et al. 2015

Estud. geol.

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“…Although no human remains have been recovered between OIS18 and OIS16, some isolated lithic assemblages have been dated to the beginning of this period, such as those found at the Middle Loire River Basin [41] and at Caune de l'Arago [42] in France. In contrast, the number of archaeological sites increases significantly in approximately 0.6−0.5 Ma, revealing new palaeoanthropological and cultural features that mark the European Middle Pleistocene [12], [43], [44]. New lithic assemblages with early Acheulean industries seem to appear in Western Europe at the end of the Early Pleistocene ([11] and reference therein) although the dates of some sites are debatable [12].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discontinuity of Human Presence at Atapuerca during the Early Middle Pleistocene: A Matter of Ecological Competition?

et al. 2014

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Increasing evidence suggests that the European human settlement is older than 1.2 Ma. However, there is a fierce debate about the continuity or discontinuity of the early human settlement of Europe. In particular, evidence of human presence in the interval 0.7−0.5 Ma is scarce in comparison with evidence for the previous and later periods. Here, we present a case study in which the environmental conditions at Sierra de Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period without evidence of human presence, are compared with the conditions in the previous period, for which a relatively intense human occupation is documented. With this objective in mind, the available resources for a human population and the intensity of competition between secondary consumers during the two periods are compared using a mathematical model. The Gran Dolina site TD8 level, dated to 0.7−0.6 Ma, is taken as representative of the period during which Atapuerca was apparently not occupied by humans. Conditions at TD8 are compared with those of the previous period, represented by the TD6-2 level, which has yielded abundant evidence of intense human occupation. The results show that survival opportunities for a hypothetical human population were lower at TD8 than they were at TD6-2. Increased resource competition between secondary consumers arises as a possible explanation for the absence of human occupation at Atapuerca in the early Middle Pleistocene.

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“…It is also from around 600-700 ka onward that we observe the first presence of Acheulean tools in Europe (Moncel et al 2015), about a million years later than their first appearance in eastern Africa (Lepre et al 2011). The first occupants of Europe seem to have done without handaxes, the earliest European assemblages only comprising stone flakes, rarely retouched, cores, and core-like tools, with a lack of standardised design and usually with limited modification only (Moyano et al 2011;Ollé et al 2015;Parfitt et al 2010). This gives special importance to the study of the geological context of inferred early sites: rocks can fracture naturally and edges can be modified by natural processes in sediments such as cryoturbation, transport, and volcanic activities, and a wide variety of such processes has been documented to mimic hominin modification and to produce Bartefact-like^geofacts (Gillespie et al 2004;Lubinski et al 2014;Nash 1993;Peacock 1991;Raynal et al 1995;Warren 1914Warren , 1920Wiśniewski et al 2014) (see also below, BDiscussion^).…”

Section: Introduction the Earliest Occupation Of Europementioning

confidence: 76%

Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

Roebroeks

Gaudzinski‐Windheuser

Baales

et al. 2017

J Paleo Arch

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The database regarding the earliest occupation of Europe has increased significantly in quantity and quality of data points over the last two decades, mainly through the addition of new sites as a result of long-term systematic excavations and large-scale prospections of Early and early Middle Pleistocene exposures. The site distribution pattern suggests an ephemeral presence of hominins in the south of Europe from around 1 million years ago onward, with occasional short northward expansions along the western coastal areas when temperate conditions permitted. From around 600,000-700,000 years ago, Acheulean artefacts appear in Europe and somewhat later hominin presence seems to pick up, with more sites and now some also present in colder climatic settings. It is again only later, around 350,000 years ago, that the first sites show up in more continental, central parts of Europe, east of the Rhine. A series of recent papers on the Early Pleistocene palaeontological site of Untermassfeld (Thuringia, Germany) makes claims that are of great interest for studies of earliest Europe and are at odds with the described pattern: the papers suggest that Untermassfeld has yielded stone tools and humanly modified faunal remains, evidence for a 1 million years old hominin presence in European continental mid-latitudes, and additional evidence that hominins were well-established in Europe already around that time period. Here, we evaluate these claims and demonstrate that these studies are severely flawed in terms of data on provenance of the materials studied and in the interpretation of faunal remains and lithics as testifying to a hominin presence at the site. In actual fact, any reference to the Untermassfeld site as an archaeological one is unwarranted. Furthermore, it is not the only European Early Pleistocene site where inferred evidence for hominin presence is problematic. The strength of the spatiotemporal patterns of hominin presence and absence depends on the quality of the data points we work with, and database maintenance, including critical evaluation of new sites, is crucial to advance our knowledge of the expansions and contractions of hominin ranges during the Pleistocene.J Paleo Arch (2018) 1:5-31 https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-017-0003-

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The Early and Middle Pleistocene technological record from Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain)

Cited by 201 publications

References 56 publications

Geocronología de los yacimientos achelenses de Pinedo y Cien Fanegas (Valle del Tajo) e implicaciones en la evolución fluvial en el entorno de Toledo (España)

Geocronología de los yacimientos achelenses de Pinedo y Cien Fanegas (Valle del Tajo) e implicaciones en la evolución fluvial en el entorno de Toledo (España)

Discontinuity of Human Presence at Atapuerca during the Early Middle Pleistocene: A Matter of Ecological Competition?

Uneven Data Quality and the Earliest Occupation of Europe—the Case of Untermassfeld (Germany)

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