Atapuerca

Subsistence strategies are a set of actions and measures chosen by hominins in a specific place and at
a specific time to obtain the means necessary to survive and reproduce as individuals and as a group.
Choosing successful actions and measures increases the group’s means of survival, which in turn gives
rise to an increase in population, thereby ensuring the continuity of the group. Some authors believe that
Early Pleistocene hominin settlements were marginal and discontinuous due to their lack of social
networks and cultural acquirements. However, the faunal remains recovered in the caves of Gran Dolina
(levels 3e4 and 6) and Sima del Elefante (levels 9e14) in the Sierra de Atapuerca (Spain) show that the
subsistence strategies of Early Pleistocene hominins in Europe were successful enough to allow hominin
groups to survive and reproduce in sufficient numbers. Therefore, these first humans would have the
ability to maintain a continuous occupation of Europe.

In Western Europe, Acheulean cultural evidence is well attested by ca. 0.5 Ma. However, recent work has proven that it was present earlier; at the end of the Early Pleistocene. The timing and mode of the Western European Acheulean needs still to be investigated, and this knowledge appears to be strongly dependent upon data from sites with sufficiently well preserved archeo-stratigraphical sequences and/or geophysical conditions that guarantee reliable dating. The karstic deposits from the Sierra de Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) represent one such case. They contain exceptionally long and continuous archeo-paleontological deposits that have yielded hominins, stone tools and faunal remains from a period covering the late Early Pleistocene up to the Holocene. Previous work has allowed us to reconstruct the evolution of technology on a local scale, from the late Early to the Middle Pleistocene, and to situate the appearance of the Acheulean more or less simultaneously in the sites of Galería, Gran Dolina-TD10 and the Sima de los Huesos, at around 0.5 Ma, after a hiatus of archeological evidence of approximately 300 Ka. These Acheulean assemblages appear in association with hominin fossils that have recently been identified as early members of the Neandertal lineage. Delving further into the description of the Acheulean from Atapuerca, we have recently focused on the technological features that we consider to be of particular evolutionary significance and attempted to identify them in other European key sites of comparable chronologies. Indeed, we identified some internal evolutionary trends, which led us to propose that there was a local transition at Atapuerca from the Acheulean to the early Middle Paleolithic techno-complexes. However, the chronological setting resulting from the intensive dating programs carried out in the Galería and Sima de los Huesos sites, and especially, the correlation of these dates with the ones available from Gran Dolina-TD10, confronts us with some apparent paradoxes underlining the need to reconsider the technological interpretation of the lithic technical record from Atapuerca. While great efforts are being made in dating and analysis at many European Middle Pleistocene sites, as well as in establishing correlations with which to build consistent regional sequences, single, long, continuous, and accurately excavated (i.e. over a large surface area) archeological successions remain crucial to properly interpret the appearance and evolution of the Acheulean throughout Europe. We further stress the importance of taking into account conditioning factors such as, raw material availability , environmental constraints and site function issues.
Ollé et al. (2016). Quaternary International (411), pp: 316-328. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2016.01.042

This work presents a study of the oldest Acheulean lithic assemblages from the Galería site, specifically the GIIa subunit, which has been dated to c. 503 AE 95 ka, and compares them with the subsequent subunit in the sequence, GIIb, dated to around 237e269 ka. The main goals of this study are to offer a detailed technological characterization of the earliest Acheulean presence in Atapuerca and to assess the elements determining the technological variability in a given site by studying the sequence, evaluating the concept of variability and defining the aspects which determine it. The Galería site does not display the features of a living space. It is a cave which was accessed by both humans and carnivores in order to obtain the animal biomass of the herbivores that had fallen down into the cave through a natural shaft. The archaeological record is therefore incomplete and fragmented, since it is the product of highly changeable occupational dynamics. In the lower Galería levels, we identified the development from an almost exclusive use of cobbles as blanks for knapping activities in the earliest periods to an increasing use of flakes. In terms of raw materials, the initially predominant use of Neogene chert and quartzite evolved towards a more balanced use of six raw materials. Furthermore, there was an increase in the size of the large tools. After comparing these two Acheulean assemblages, it is important to put them into context by taking into account a) the significance of cobbles and flakes as blanks; b) the significance of cleavers; and c) the use of raw materials such as quartzite, sandstone or chert. These aspects have traditionally been used to facilitate comparisons of the technologies used within the Iberian Peninsula, and comparisons between the Acheulean technology of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa and the European (i.e. trans-Pyrenean) Acheulean technology.

It has been repeatedly proposed that the human presence in Europe during the late Early and the early Middle Pleistocene was conditioned, among other factors, by the available trophic resources and by the competition with carnivores for these resources. Competition for meat with other secondary consumers could delay the human dispersal through Europe. Moreover, some research suggests that human settlement was discontinuous in Europe during the late Early and the Middle Pleistocene and that this discontinuity might be related to the presence of other secondary consumers. The competition intensity among secondary consumer species in Europe has been previously analysed at both local and continental scales. At the local scale, two faunal assemblages from the Sierra de Atapuerca sites were analysed, demonstrating that competition intensity was higher in the early Middle Pleistocene than in the late Early Pleistocene. At a continental scale, 34 faunal assemblages were analysed and demonstrated an opposite pattern. In the present study, we extended the local analysis to include more faunal assemblages from the Sierra de Atapuerca sites to track the changes in the competition intensity during a longer time period. The results show that humans were able to successfully exploit the Atapuerca ecosystems at different levels of competition intensity, and that TD6-2 assemblage exhibits an exceptionally low degree of competition. It is proposed that the TD6-2 paleocommunity likely included a large felid species that is not recorded in the fossil assemblage. Lack of human presence in the TD8 assemblage may be related to increased competition intensity inside the guild of secondary consumers, while the technological development from Mode 2 to Mode 3 could be related to an increased degree of competition. There are similarities between the analyses at the continental and local scales from the point of view of the available biomass for secondary consumers, but the competition intensity shows little variation at the local scale, with the exception of the TD6-2 assemblage.

Hominin dietary specialization is crucial to understanding the evolutionary changes of craniofacial biomechanics and the interaction of food processing methods' effects on teeth. However, the diet-related dental wear processes of the earliest European hominins remain unknown because most of the academic attention has focused on Neandertals. Non-occlusal dental microwear provides direct evidence of the effect of chewed food particles on tooth enamel surfaces and reflects dietary signals over time. Here, we report for the first time the direct effect of dietary abrasiveness as evidenced by the buccal microwear patterns on the teeth of the Sima del Elefante-TE9 and Gran Dolina-TD6 Atapuerca hominins (1.2–0.8 million years ago − Myr) as compared with other Lower and Middle Pleistocene populations. A unique buccal microwear pattern that is found in Homo antecessor (0.96–0.8 Myr), a well-known cannibal species, indicates dietary practices that are consistent with the consumption of hard and brittle foods. Our findings confirm that the oldest European inhabitants ingested more mechanically-demanding diets than later populations because they were confronted with harsh, fluctuating environmental conditions. Furthermore, the influence of grit-laden food suggests that a high-quality meat diet from butchering processes could have fueled evolutionary changes in brain size. The dietary strategies of the European Lower Pleistocene hominins from Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) have been inferred solely from faunal assemblages that were found in the same levels where the human remains were unearthed. The TE9 Unit at the Sima del Elefante site (1.2 Myr) has yielded a broad range of medium and large-sized mammals and even tortoises that show anthropogenic modifications, which indicate that they were part of the hominin diet 1,2. Moreover, the TD6 level at the Gran Dolina site (0.8–0.96 Myr) has provided evidence not only of hunted and scavenged mammals 3 but also of butchered and eaten human remains, which is the most ancient evidence of human cannibalism 4. However, the feeding habits of these hominins have not been inferred from a wide range of sources of information similar to the Middle Pleistocene European populations. Dental wear 5,6 and isotopic signals 7 have provided valuable information of Middle Pleistocene species. The isotopic signals are indicative of mainly carnivorous dietary regimens for Neandertal populations. However, carnivorous regimens contrast with the buccal dental microwear analyses that show dietary habits that include significant amounts of abrasive plant foods that cause highly abrasive loads on enamel surfaces compared with modern hunter-gatherer populations 8,9. Because of these contradictory interpretations and because most of the academic attention 5 has focused on Neandertals, an independent and comprehensive reconstruction of dietary ecology in Lower Paleolithic European hominins is necessary. We therefore apply a novel approach that is based on buccal

Ethological studies have shown that besides human groups, large-medium carnivores have bone-collecting habits. The research developed since the last half of the twentieth century has attempted to characterise the carnivore's accumulations and to identify them in the archaeo-paleontological record. At present, we have diagnostic criteria that deene the accumulations produced by hyenids (mainly, Crocuta crocuta), thereby allowing us to diierentiate them from the other accumulating agents. The faunal assemblage recovered at the Early Pleistocene TD6.3 layer of the Gran Dolina site is characterised by the presence of typical elements described in hyena dens: presence of small carnivores remains, high bone breakage, low epiphysis survival and a high frequency (>30%) of specimens with carnivore induced modiications, including large amounts of digested bones. However, attritional mortality prooles, hyena's cubs remains, mid-shaft bone cylinders or diierential anatomical composition among diierent weight-sizes, have not been observed or are ambiguous. In addition, anthropic evidences are scarce and concentrated in the uppermost section of the layer. TD6.3 is the result of an accumulation produced by hyenas using the cave as a den, in alternation with sporadic occupations by hominin groups. TD6.3 shows that hyena fossil accumulations may present great anatomical and taxonomic variability.

The existence of calcanei in the fossil record prior to modern humans and Neandertals is very scarce. This skeletal element is fundamental to understanding the evolution of the morphology of the foot in human evolution. Here we present and metrically and comparatively describe 29 calcaneus remains from the Middle Pleistocene site of Sima de los Huesos (SH) (Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain). These calcanei belong to 15 individuals (nine adults, two adolescents and four immature individuals). The metric and morphological differences in the calcanei among Middle and Late Pleistocene hominins tend to be subtle. However, the calcanei from SH are broad and robust with large articular surfaces and most significantly, exhibit a very projected sustentaculum tali. A biomechanical and phylogenetic interpretation is proffered to explain the observed morphology of these calcanei. It has been possible to propose tentative sex assignments for the SH calcanei based on size, using methods similar...