Human remains from Valdegoba Cave (Huérmeces, Burgos, Spain)

Abstract

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.

Surprising migration and population size dynamics in ancient Iberian brown bears ( Ursus arctos )

“…Four samples (Aketegi II, Hortiguela, Maza Cotina, and La Paloma) were radiocarbon-dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) at the Ångströ m Laboratory, Uppsala University in Sweden. The three samples from Valdegoba have a paleontological context dated to 75,000 to 90,000 years old (29). The sample belonging to Arlanpe, in the Basque Country, dates back to the Pleistocene period.…”

The primate fossil record in the Iberian Peninsula

“…Main references: Alférez et al (1982Alférez et al ( , 1985; Dean et al (1986); Arsuaga et al (1984Arsuaga et al ( , 1989Arsuaga et al ( , 2007; Antunes and Santinho Cunha (1992); Hublin et al (1995);Sanchez (1999); Quam et al (2001); Barroso (2003); Daura et al (2005); Grün et al (2006); Rosas et al (2006);Aguirre Enríquez (2007); Trinkaus et al (2007);Walker et al (2008Walker et al ( , 2010Walker et al ( , 2011Arsuaga et al (2012).…”

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“…Although this feature has not been studied systematically in later Pleistocene hominins, the most common premolar root form would seem to be that of a single root (1R). Among the Neandertals, a division of the P 3 root into lingual and buccal components, corresponding to a Tome's root (2T), occasionally can be found (Kallay 1963;Quam et al 2001). The root bifurcation seen in the PPm3 specimen has not been previously reported in any other Neandertal specimen.…”

“…The PPm1 individual shows a greater degree of dental calcification than does Scladina since the P 4 is fully occluded and the M 3 is between the R¾-Rc stages in PPm1. Thus, on the whole, the evidence suggests an age at death of between 9-14 years for PPm1, with a more likely estimate falling toward the lower end of this The mandibular remains, teeth, and temporal bone (PPm1-5) have been described previously (Elyaqtine 1997;Gabis 1956;Siffre 1908), and the Petit Puymoyen fossils have been frequently included within Neandertal comparative samples in a number of recent studies (Bailey and Hublin 2006;Granat and Heim 2003;Heim and Granat 1995;Mann and Vandermeersch 1997;Manzi and Passarello 1995;Quam et al 2001;Quam et al 2009;Spoor et al 2003;Trinkaus 1998a, 1998b). Neandertal affinities have been identified in the dental remains in the morphology of the crown surface (Bailey 2002(Bailey , 2004Bailey and Lynch 2005), the accelerated growth rate of the enamel (Ramirez-Rozzi and Bermúdez de Castro 2004), and the patterning of placement of hypoplastic defects (Ogilvie et al 1989).…”

“…However, both superior and inferior transverse tori are regularly found in Neandertal mandibles, and the degree of expression of both these structures shows considerable variation, ranging from strongly pronounced (Quam et al 2001) to nearly absent (Suzuki and Takai 1970). The internal tori in PPm1 are less pronounced than those in Valdegoba 1, which shows well-developed tori (Quam et al 2001), but seem more similar to the specimens from Vindija and Guattari 2 and 3 (Sergi 1954;Sergi and Ascenzi 1955;Smith et al 1985a;Wolpoff et al 1981). Thus, the internal symphysis in PPm1 is archaic in that it is distinguishable from H. sapiens, which generally does not show internal tori, but it is clearly within the Neandertal range of variation.…”