The new chronology of the Ceprano calvarium (Italy)

Manzi, Giorgio; Magri, Donatella; Milli, Salvatore; Palombo, Maria Rita; Margari, Vasiliki; Celiberti, Vincenzo; Barbieri, Mário; Barbieri, Maurizio; Melis, Rita Teresa; Rubini, Mauro; Ruffo, Massimo; Saracino, Barbara; Tzedakis, Polychronis C.; Zarattini, A.; Biddittu, Italo

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.06.010

Cited by 74 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…If this were the case, we might be observing the coexistence of two or more hominin lineages during the Middle Pleistocene that are represented by the Sima de los Huesos homi nins on one hand and more primitive fo ssils such as Arago or Mauer on the other. Recent findings, such as the retrieval of the DNA mitochondrial sequence from Denisova , the new Middle Pleistocene data for the Ceprano calvaria (Manzi et al, 2010), or the finding of an Upper Pleistocene mandible from Mala Balanica (Serbia) without clear Neanderthal traits (Roksandic et al, 2011 ) might support the possibility of complex evolutionary scenarios with persistence and temporal coexistence of different hominin lineages.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain)

Martinón‐Torres

Castro

Gómez‐Robles

et al. 2012

Journal of Human Evolution

220

258

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain)

Martinón‐Torres

Castro

Gómez‐Robles

et al. 2012

Journal of Human Evolution

220

258

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“…Recently, however, the site has been re-dated on the basis of multidisciplinary investigations to the mid of the Middle Pleistocene, between 430 and 385 ka [8], [9]. By contrast, the peculiar morphology of the Ceprano calvarium has no equivalent in Europe or elsewhere and its taxonomic status has been so far controversial, being alternatively viewed as a “late” H. erectus [4], [10], a possible adult individual of H. antecessor [5], or the holotype of a new species named H. cepranensis [11].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Stem Species of Our Species: A Place for the Archaic Human Cranium from Ceprano, Italy

2011

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One of the present challenges in the study of human evolution is to recognize the hominin taxon that was ancestral to Homo sapiens. Some researchers regard H. heidelbergensis as the stem species involved in the evolutionary divergence leading to the emergence of H. sapiens in Africa, and to the evolution of the Neandertals in Europe. Nevertheless, the diagnosis and hypodigm of H. heidelbergensis still remain to be clarified. Here we evaluate the morphology of the incomplete cranium (calvarium) known as Ceprano whose age has been recently revised to the mid of the Middle Pleistocene, so as to test whether this specimen may be included in H. heidelbergensis. The analyses were performed according to a phenetic routine including geometric morphometrics and the evaluation of diagnostic discrete traits. The results strongly support the uniqueness of H. heidelbergensis on a wide geographical horizon, including both Eurasia and Africa. In this framework, the Ceprano calvarium – with its peculiar combination of archaic and derived traits – may represent, better than other penecontemporaneous specimens, an appropriate ancestral stock of this species, preceding the appearance of regional autapomorphic features.

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“…regarding the inferred artifactual character of finds (see for example the site Konczyce Wielkie 4 in South Poland (Wiśniewski et al 2014)) or their age (Álvarez-Posada et al 2017;Jiménez-Arenas et al 2011), as well illustrated by the significant rejuvenation of the Ceprano (Italy) calvarium over the last decade by about 400,000 years, from an inferred pre-Brunhes-Matuyama (Manzi et al 2001) age to the current age estimate of around 400 ka (Muttoni et al 2009;Manzi et al 2010)-see also the case of the Isernia site in Italy, which moved from an inferred pre-Brunhes-Matuyama age (Peretto 1991) to well into the Middle Pleistocene (Roebroeks and van Kolfschoten 1994) as recently demonstrated again by 40 Ar/…”

Section: Beyond Untermassfeldmentioning

confidence: 99%

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 new chronology of the Ceprano calvarium (Italy)

Cited by 74 publications

References 23 publications

Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain)

Morphological description and comparison of the dental remains from Atapuerca-Sima de los Huesos site (Spain)

The Stem Species of Our Species: A Place for the Archaic Human Cranium from Ceprano, Italy

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

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