Hominin in Spain 1.2 million years BP

[Rokcet Scientist]

Fossil find is oldest European yet

Spanish jawbone is earliest human remains from Western Europe.

Michael Hopkin

The petite jaw suggests the oldest-found European was probably female.

Spanish palaeontologists have dug up the remains of a 1.2-million-year-old humanlike inhabitant of Western Europe. The fossil find shows that members of our genus, Homo, colonized this region far earlier than many experts had thought.

The primitive hominin — represented by just a fragment of jawbone bearing a handful of wobbly-looking teeth — lived in what is now [...]

Whole article: http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080326/ ... 8.691.html

So was she a cousin of Dmanisi Man?

[dannan14]

The article about this find on MSN had this to add:

And, critically, the team says the new one also bears similarities to much-older fossils dug up since 1983 in the Caucasus at a place called Dmanisi, in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. These were dated as being up to 1.8 million years old.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23813443&GT1=43001


Sounds like H. erectus really got around.

[Digit]

Lends further support to the regional speciation debate I think.

[Beagle]

Wow, this extends the presence of early humans in Europe by 400,000 yrs. That's an astronomical leap! It should give a lot of scientists much to ponder on.

Hawks already reports but doesn't have much to say at this time.
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/fossils/low ... -2008.html

It's a big boost for regionalism.

[Cognito]

This is a cool article and will assist in opening up some minds. That "400,000 years earlier" comment reminded me of the following article which indicates that H. erectus was in China as long as 2.25 million years ago.

http://www.archaeology.org/0001/newsbriefs/china.html

Hardaker thinks they were smart enough to go boating 800,000 years ago. Carved javelins show up 400,000 years ago -- and we still consider these blokes to be cave men.

I just love the sound of crashing paradigms!

[Minimalist]

Hard to imagine crossing the strait of Gibraltar without something resembling a boat, isn't it?

[john]

Hard to imagine crossing the strait of Gibraltar without something resembling a boat, isn't it?

Gosh, Min -

Its obvious that the big difference between the earlier and later versions

Of Homo antecessor

Is that the earlier version had gills.

That gets rid of the

"Too stupid to build boats" argument.

I'm just trying to figure out

The construction of the watertight bags

They put the hematite in.


hoka hey

john

[Rokcet Scientist]

Hard to imagine crossing the strait of Gibraltar without something resembling a boat, isn't it?

Naaah, a boat would have been ballast on their trek.

[kbs2244]

I am sorry, but I find it hard to construct a whole habitation from one jaw bone.
The nearest similar one in in Georgia? That is quite a ways away!

[Forum Monk]

Hard to imagine crossing the strait of Gibraltar without something resembling a boat, isn't it?

In modern times, very few have or will venture across the Gilbraltar strait in an unpowered craft. It is a treacherous crossing. If ancient man was intelligent he wouldn't have done it. Typically, modern adventurers are stupid enough to try it. The intelligent guy finds another way across the 14 mile gap.

[Rokcet Scientist]

If there was a gap.

[Forum Monk]

If there was a gap.

Indeed!
Gilbraltar during the LGM (looking south)

[Forum Monk]

btw - it probably looked a lot different 1 million years ago. I don't compensate for continental drift.

[Beagle]

Several years ago it was widely hypothesized that an early group of humans crossed the Strait of Gibralter. That's because the fossil trail suggested that.

Still, these earliest humans in Europe are found in Spain, but now we have the beginning of a fossil trail out of Africa through the Levant beginning at a little over two million years ago.

Although the fossil trail is sparse, this suggests that they probably walked around to Spain the long way.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Why do you assume it is either this route or that one? I bet it was all of them!

BTW, it'll be interesting to see when – not if – and how this Spanish find will be included in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Erectus.

And musing on, let's have a look at the land masses 'available to' HE in his day. Sea levels at 400 feet lower levels 'augmented' by some tectonic activity here and there would have made HE's world look a lot different than ours today. With different opportunities for migration.
Basically all of the continental shelves would have been 'available' to HE for habitat and migration. And HE was a hunter-gatherer. A roamer, a trekker. He got around. Eastern China and Australasia for example. Looks like HE was a clever opportunist whose fear of the unknown was surmounted by his curiosity for what was behind the horizon.
But a good harvest of mussels and clams, berries and roots, a couple eggs, and maybe a meaty hare or gazelle always was a more immediate concern of course.