The Cave of Aroeira () is an

archaeological Archaeology or archeology is the study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of Artifact (archaeology), artifacts, architecture, biofact (archaeology), biofacts or ecofacts, ...

and

paleoanthropological Paleoanthropology or paleo-anthropology is a branch of paleontology and anthropology which seeks to understand the early development of anatomically modern humans, a process known as hominization, through the reconstruction of evolutionary kinship ...

site in the Portuguese Estremadura Limestone Massif. The cave is located in the village of Almonda, in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

of Zibreira, in the municipality of

Torres Novas Torres Novas () is a Portugal, Portuguese Concelho, municipality in the district of Santarém (district), Santarém, in the Médio Tejo Subregion, Médio Tejo of the Oeste e Vale do Tejo region. The population of the municipality was approximately ...

in the district of Santarém. The cave contained stones from 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 ...

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, and the skull of ''

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 ...

'', circa 400,000 years old. The discovery of '' Aroeira 3'' was announced in spring 2017 - the earliest human trace in Portugal.Phys Org, March 13, 2017, 400,000-year-old fossil human cranium is oldest ever found in Portugal
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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

Exploration

The Cave of Aroeira is part of the Almonda-

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 ...

system, This system is formed of passages excavated at different elevations whose intersections with the 70-m-high

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

rising above the extant spring of the Almonda River, a tributary of the

Tagus River 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 ...

, correspond to fossil outlets of its subterranean course. The entrance to the cave was completely sealed by roof collapses when the excavation began in 1998.Joan Daura

et al. References Notes References Further reading * * External links * {{Latin phrases E ...

: ''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 deposits in the cave are about four meters thick and are categorised in three stratigraphic layers, from the lowest of which the fossil ''Aroeira 3'' was salvaged. Various independent analyses revealed an age of approximately 400,000 years, due to the detection of the oxygen isotope stage MIS 11c. The most recent deposits in the cave have been dated to an age of 60,000 to 40,000 years (MIS 3c).

First exploration: Aroeira 1 and Aroeira 2

The Cave of Aroeira was first investigated from 1998–2002 revealing a rich lithic assemblage with Acheulean

bifaces A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a 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 piece by kna ...

associated with faunal remains and two human teeth: Aroeira 1 (a left mandibular

canine Canine may refer to: Zoology and anatomy * Animals of the family Canidae, more specifically the subfamily Caninae, which includes dogs, wolves, foxes, jackals and coyotes ** ''Canis'', a genus that includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, and jackals ** Do ...

) and Aroeira 2 (a left maxillary third molar). Aroeira 1 is moderately large and Aroeira 2 is among the larger of the

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, more widely known as the Middle Pleistocene (its previous informal name), is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocen ...

upper right third molars. They fit morphologically within the known variation of European Middle Pleistocene dentitions, although Aroeira 2 has a relatively large

hypocone A cusp is a pointed, projecting, or elevated feature. In animals, it is usually used to refer to raised points on the crowns of teeth. The concept is also used with regard to the leaflets of the four heart valves. The mitral valve, which has ...

. The faunal remains are highly fragmented, mainly consisting of isolated teeth, phalanges, carpal/tarsal bones, and antler fragments. Identified species include

deer A deer (: deer) or true deer is a hoofed ruminant ungulate of the family Cervidae (informally the deer family). Cervidae is divided into subfamilies Cervinae (which includes, among others, muntjac, elk (wapiti), red deer, and fallow deer) ...

and

equids Equidae (commonly known as the horse family) is the taxonomic family of horses and related animals, including asses, zebras, and many extinct species known only from fossils. The family evolved more than 50 million years ago, in the Eocene epoch, ...

predominantly, but also

rhinoceros A rhinoceros ( ; ; ; : rhinoceros or rhinoceroses), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates (perissodactyls) in the family (biology), famil ...

bear Bears are carnivoran mammals of the family (biology), family Ursidae (). They are classified as caniforms, or doglike carnivorans. Although only eight species of bears are extant, they are widespread, appearing in a wide variety of habitats ...

as well as a large

bovid The Bovidae comprise the family (biology), biological family of cloven-hoofed, ruminant mammals that includes Bos, cattle, bison, Bubalina, buffalo, antelopes (including Caprinae, goat-antelopes), Ovis, sheep and Capra (genus), goats. A member o ...

(Bos/Bison), a caprid, and a Testudo tortoise.

Aroeira 3

Renewed fieldwork in 2013, focused on establishing the chronology of the sequence via

U-series dating U series or U-series may refer to: Science and technology * HTC U series, Android smartphones * IdeaPad U series, Lenovo consumer laptop computers * Sony U series The Sony U series of subnotebook computers refers to two series of Sony products the ...

of interstratified flowstone deposits, led to the discovery of a partially preserved human cranium (Aroeira 3) encased in hard

breccia Breccia ( , ; ) is a rock composed of large angular broken fragments of minerals or Rock (geology), rocks cementation (geology), cemented together by a fine-grained matrix (geology), matrix. The word has its origins in the Italian language ...

toward the base of the sequence. The block containing the main portion of the cranium and the detached fragments were transported to the Conservation and Restoration Laboratory at the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid (, UCM; ) is a public research university located in Madrid. Founded in Alcalá in 1293 (before relocating to Madrid in 1836), it is one of the oldest operating universities in the world, and one of Spain's ...

for further preparation. The cranium was restored over a period of two years. Although the taxonomic identity is debated, some authors prefer to group Aroeira 3 with other Middle Pleistocene fossils from Africa and Asia in a separate species,

Bibliography

* Daura, J., Sanz, M., Arsuaga, J.L.J.L., Hoffmann, D.L.D.L., Quam, R.M.R.M., Ortega, M.C.M.C., Santos, E., Gómez, S., Rubio, A., Villaescusa, L., Souto, P., Mauricio, J., Rodrigues, F., Ferreira, A., Godinho, P., Trinkaus, E., Zilhão, J., 2017c. New Middle Pleistocene hominin cranium from Gruta da Aroeira (Portugal). Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 114, 3397–3402. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1619040114 * Daura, J., Sanz, M., Deschamps, M., Matias, H., Igreja, M., Villaescusa, L., Gómez, S., Rubio, A., Souto, P., Rodrigues, F., Zilhão, J., 2018. A 400,000-year-old Acheulean assemblage associated with the Aroeira-3 human cranium (Gruta da Aroeira, Almonda karst system, Portugal). Comptes Rendus Palevol 17, 594–615. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crpv.2018.03.003 * Sanz, M., Sala, N., Daura, J., Pantoja-Pérez, A., Santos, E., Zilhão, J., Arsuaga, J.L., 2018. Taphonomic inferences about Middle Pleistocene hominins: The human cranium of Gruta da Aroeira (Portugal). American Journal of Physical Anthropology 167, 615–627. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajpa.23689 * Sanz, M., Daura, J., Cabanes, D., Égüez, N., Carrancho, Á., Badal, E., Souto, P., Rodrigues, F., Zilhão, J., 2020. Early evidence of fire in south-western Europe: the Acheulean site of Gruta da Aroeira (Torres Novas, Portugal). Scientific Reports 10, 12053. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-68839-w

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Aroeira cave Caves of Portugal Homo heidelbergensis fossils 2017 archaeological discoveries Archaeological sites in Santarém District