Sierra de Atapuerca: Sima de los Huesos and Homo antecessor
Sierra de Atapuerca: Sima de los Huesos y Homo antecessor
- Date
- 1976 / 1994 / 2007 · confidence high
- Place
- Sierra de Atapuerca, Burgos, Spain
- Credited to
- Emiliano Aguirre, Juan Luis Arsuaga, José María Bermúdez de Castro, Eudald Carbonell
- People
- 👤 Emiliano Aguirre1925–2021👤 Eudald Carbonell1953–👤 José María Bermúdez de Castro y Risueño1952–👤 Juan Luis Arsuaga1954–
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
The Sima de los Huesos contains the largest accumulation of Pleistocene human fossils (430,000 years old, pre-Neanderthals) and the Gran Dolina yielded Homo antecessor in 1994 (850,000 years old), the oldest hominins in Western Europe, extended by the Sima del Elefante (1.2-1.4 Ma).
Coordinates of the Trinchera del Ferrocarril. Finds have continued since 1976; the Sima del Elefante jawbone (2007) and the 2022 face extend the chronology.
What it led to
- Oldest nuclear DNA from a hominin (2016)
- Revision of the peopling of Europe
- Museum of Human Evolution and World Heritage status (2000)
Built on
- Mining railway cutting (19th century)
- Cavers of the Edelweiss Group
Made possible
- Ancient DNA from the Sima de los Huesos2013-2016
- Palaeogenomics of sediments and ancient fossils
- Electron spin resonance dating