Aroeira 3
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Aroeira 3 is a 400,000 year old ''
Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' is a species of archaic human from the Middle Pleistocene of Europe and Africa, as well as potentially Asia depending on the taxonomic convention used. The species-level classification of ''Homo'' during the Middle Pleis ...
'' hominid skull which was discovered in the Aroeira cave, Portugal. It is the earliest human trace in Portugal. ''H. heidelbergensis'' existed at the transition between ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...
'' and early
Neanderthals Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
and used both stone tools and fire. The skull was damaged during the 2014 excavation but was restored in the following two years. In 2017, the description of the skull was published in ''
PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of S ...
''. It is on display in the National Archaeology Museum (Lisbon).


Description

Aroeira 3 is a 400,000 year old ''
Homo heidelbergensis ''Homo heidelbergensis'' is a species of archaic human from the Middle Pleistocene of Europe and Africa, as well as potentially Asia depending on the taxonomic convention used. The species-level classification of ''Homo'' during the Middle Pleis ...
'' hominid skull from the Middle Pleistocene which was discovered in the Aroeira cave, Portugal and announced in spring 2017. It is the earliest human trace in Portugal. Hominin fossils from this era are commonly classified as ''H. heidelbergensis'', a
chronospecies A chronospecies is a species derived from a sequential development pattern that involves continual and uniform changes from an extinct ancestral form on an evolutionary scale. The sequence of alterations eventually produces a population that is p ...
that stands at the transition between ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...
'' and early
Neanderthals Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
. The
Palaeolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
Acheulean Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated with ''Homo ...
culture, attributed to this and other finds in the Cave of Aroeira, is characterised by the production of
Stone tools Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a c ...
, notably the
hand axe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a Prehistory, prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is made from stone, usually flint or chert that has been "reduced" and shaped from a larger ...
and the use of fire. The skull was damaged during the 2014 excavation from the hard conglomerate rock, but was restored in the following two years. It was only in 2017 that the description of the skull was published in the ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...
'' (''PNAS'').Phys Org, March 13, 2017, 400,000-year-old fossil human cranium is oldest ever found in Portugal
/ref>Joan Daura
et al.: ''New Middle Pleistocene hominin cranium from Gruta da Aroeira (Portugal).'' In: ''
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Scie ...
(PNAS)'' Online pre-release of 13 March 2017.
The primitive man from Portugal, Article from 16 March 2017 des
Hamburger Abendblatt ''Hamburger Abendblatt'' () is a German daily newspaper in Hamburg belonging to the Funke Mediengruppe, publishing Monday to Saturday. The paper focuses on news in Hamburg and its surrounds, and produces regional supplements with news from Norde ...
, accessed on March 22, 2017
''Crânio de 400 mil anos é o fóssil humano mais antigo descoberto em Portugal''
400,000 year old skull found the oldest human fossil in Portugal, Article from 13. March 2017 he Portuguese newspaper Público, accessed on March 22, 2017


Features

Aroeira 3 shows some of the features from similar skulls found in Europe, but their combination is unique. The over-eyelashes are continuous, as in the Bilzingsleben skull fragments of ''
Homo erectus ''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...
bilzingslebensis''. The mastoid of the temporal bone is short as in '' Homo steinheimensis'' from the gravel pit at Steinheim an der Murr. The large, triangular bony tap on the temporal bone near the auditory canal is also present in skull no. 5 from the site
Sima de los Huesos The Sima de los Huesos hominins are a 430,000 year old population of "pre-Neanderthals" from the archaeological site of Atapuerca, archeological site of Atapuerca, Spain. They are in the "Neanderthal clade", but fall outside of ''Homo neanderthal ...
in Spain, the best preserved ''Homo heidelbergensis'' skull in the world. The Aroeira 3 skull, however, differs from this and the ''Homo steinheimensis'' by the absence of essential features that also occur in the early Neanderthals.Roberto Sáez
''Aroeira 3: The westernmost Middle Pleistocene cranium of Europe.''
Nutcracker Man, outreaching the human evolution research, 13. March 2017, retrieved on March 15, 2017 (English)


Location

The skull was found in a cave above the source of the Rio Almonda, a tributary of the
Tagus The Tagus ( ; ; ) is the longest river in the Iberian Peninsula. The river rises in the Montes Universales between Cuenca and Teruel, in mid-eastern Spain, flows , generally westward, and empties into the Atlantic Ocean in Lisbon. Name T ...
, which lies in the
karst Karst () is a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and Dolomite (rock), dolomite. It is characterized by features like poljes above and drainage systems with sinkholes and caves underground. Ther ...
landscape of the Portuguese Estremadura Limestone Massif. The river forms an approximately 40-kilometer-long cut in the limestone massif with steep banks up to 70 meters in height. On these steep banks, there are various entrances to caves and cave systems that are partially collapsed or filled. Some caves have been excavated and explored. They are associated with human evolution during the
Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
and the cultural history during the
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic ( years ago) ( ), also called the Old Stone Age (), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone tools, and which represents almost the entire period of human prehist ...
. There are some cave systems used in the Upper Palaeolithic such as ''Entrada Superior'', ''Entrada do Vale da Serra'' and ''Gruta da Aroeira''. The Middle Palaeolithic is represented in the ''Gruta da Oliveira''. Late Palaeolithic developments of the
Solutrean The Solutrean industry is a relatively advanced flint tool-making style of the Upper Paleolithic of the Final Gravettian, from around 22,000 to 17,000 BP. Solutrean sites have been found in modern-day France, Spain and Portugal. Detai ...
and
Magdalenian Magdalenian cultures (also Madelenian; ) are later cultures of the Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic in western Europe. They date from around 17,000 to 12,000 years before present. It is named after the type site of Abri de la Madeleine, a ro ...
cultures can be found in the ''Galeria da Cisterna'' and the ''Lapa dos Coelhos''.João Zilhão, Diego E. Angelucci, Joan Daura, Marianne Deschamps, Dirk L. Hoffmann, Henrique Matias, Mariana Nabais, Montserrat Sanz
The ''Almonda karst system (Torres Novas, Portugal): a window into half a million years of long-term change in climate, settlement, subsistence, technology and cult.''
Proceedings of the European Society for the study of Human Evolution, 5, 2016, S. 253,
Since 1978, the caves have been systematically explored, the first phase of the excavation work in the Cave of Aroeira lasted from 1998 until 2002. In addition to two early human teeth from the
Acheulian Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated with ''Homo ...
industry (a canine and a molar, known as Aroeira 1 and Aroeira 2) were also found. The second phase of excavation, from 2013 to 2015, included the well-preserved skull Aroeira 3, but the hardness of the sediment in which it was embedded lead to damage during recovery and had it to be partially reconstructed.


Age

The age was assessed by
uranium–thorium dating Uranium–thorium dating, also called thorium-230 dating, uranium-series disequilibrium dating or uranium-series dating, is a radiometric dating technique established in the 1960s which has been used since the 1970s to determine the age of calcium ...
, whereby the age of the outer layer of the adjacent
stalagmite A stalagmite (, ; ; ) is a type of rock formation that rises from the floor of a cave due to the accumulation of material deposited on the floor from ceiling drippings. Stalagmites are typically composed of calcium carbonate, but may consist ...
was found to be 406,000 years within a range of 30,000 years. This is the upper limit because the stalagmite was later buried by boulders and mud masses and stopped growing. Calcite crusts on the skull itself were dated to 390,000 years (± 14,000 years).


See also

*
List of human evolution fossils The following tables give an overview of notable finds of Hominini, hominin fossils and Skeleton, remains relating to human evolution, beginning with the formation of the tribe Hominini (the divergence of the Chimpanzee–human last common ancest ...


References

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